


The Living Myth

by Lleurai



Category: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Tons of OCs, Witch in a different life, as in not Jaenelle Angelline at all, no canon characters appearing unless you count Witch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 52,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4987954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lleurai/pseuds/Lleurai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dreams of the Blood accrue in the Darkness, countless whispers and wisps of thought, a tangle of imagery spun out of every sleeping mind. Sometimes, when a pressing need consumes the thoughts and hearts of the Blood, the Darkness gives birth to a woman who can answer that need. She is Witch, dreams incarnated. </p><p>But other times, there is no pressing need. There is no great cause calling Witch out of the Darkness. Instead, dreams -- wild and random, beautiful and heartbreaking, manic and arbitrary and gorgeous -- coalesce on their own, spilling into the waking world in the form of Witch, a myth come to life.</p><p>This time, her name is Roueneil.</p><p> </p><p>This is a canon-compliant story of one of Witch's other incarnations, assuming that Draca was correct about the variety of ways and reasons she is reborn. Roueneil is not Black-Jeweled, not a Queen, and not here to save the world. None of the original characters will appear; this is set in an entirely different time. Mentions of violence, torture, rape, etc will be about on par with Bishop's novels. There are M/F, M/M, and F/F pairings, but only for secondary characters. No love interest for Witch this time around/at this point in her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preface

JEWELS OF THE BLOOD

White  
Yellow  
Tiger Eye  
Rose  
Summer-sky  
Purple Dusk  
Opal*  
Green  
Sapphire  
Red  
Gray  
Ebon-gray  
Black

 

*Opal is the dividing line between lighter and darker Jewels because it can be either.

When making the Offering to the Darkness, a person can descend a maximum of three ranks from his/her Birthright Jewel.  
Example: Birthright White could descend to Rose.

(Above is taken from the preface of Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels novels.)

\------

_That is not always the dream. There have been quiet dreams and strong dreams. There have been Queens and songmakers._ – Draca

dream (noun)  
: a series of thoughts, visions, or feelings that happen during sleep  
: an idea or vision that is created in your imagination and that is not real  
: something that you have wanted very much to do, be, or have for a long time


	2. Chapter 2

“Rou!” Devara shouted, holding the door open behind her. “Roueneil! Lunch!” Near the edge of the woods, a tiny figure stood bolt upright in the looming twilight before sprinting toward the house. Devara grinned and raised her voice again. “Roueneil! Come on child! Food's awaitin'!” Satisfied with the girl's progress, she stepped back inside and began to ladle out the stew simmering in the hearth. Six bowls sat steaming on the counter when Roueneil burst through the door in a tangle of long hair and kilted up skirts. Devara clucked at her without ceasing her work. “Pull that mess of your hair back and get these bowls out there. You know everyone's always eager for dinner, bless all your hearts.”

Devara was still giving instructions as Roueneil untwined a pale scarf from her waistband and wrapped her hair in it, fingers flying through the snarls and twists. Hair caught up, skirts let down, bowls of soup in each hand, she darted through the large doorway opposite the hearth and nearly danced into the temple's dining room. A half-dozen or so people, adults and children both, sat along the long trestle, engaged in everything from quiet observation to enthusiastic debate, judging by the woman banging her hand against the table's surface and the man facing her leaning nearly his entire torso across the table to brandish a finger.

Steam and the savor of smoked ham trickled into the room. One skinny boy bounced in place as he saw the bowls Roueneil was setting at each place. She left one in front of him and tweaked his ear with a giggle. Devara followed her, filling in the empty places with the bowls she carried. Once everyone was served, Devara took a seat near the head of the table with Roueneil beside her. Nearly in unison, the seated diners reached out and clasped hands. From the head of the table, a woman's strong voice rolled through the hall.

“We thank those whose efforts have brought us this food. Honor and gratitude do we return, service for service.” A rumbled chorus of “aye”s preceded the enthusiastic enjoyment of the meal. Devara's stew was rich and hearty, peppered lightly with a mix of fresh herbs from the temple's garden. Roueneil ate intently and without speaking to those around her, but although Devara kept an eye on her, she wasn't overly concerned. Crowds tended to have this effect on her niece. And with the anticipation of the next day, she wasn't surprised Roueneil didn't feel up to conversation.  _Her Birthright ceremony_ , Devara mused, half-listening to the woman on her right.  _And then we'll see._ See what, her mind asked, but she stifled the question. See something. That was certain.

 

 

“What happens in the Birthright Cerr'm'y, Auntie?” Roueneil asked, a yawn smearing the end of her question into near-incomprehensibility. 

Devara tucked the quilt around her and smoothed her hair. “You've seen plenty of Birthright Ceremonies. Your mother and I will walk you into the temple, the Priestess – Anilie, it will be, tomorrow – will ask the Darkness's blessing, and she will escort you to the Altar to get your Birthright Jewel.”

“But what happens? How does the Altar know which Jewel I get?”

“The Darkness will know, hon'. And the Darkness will leave the Jewel that's right for you on the Altar.” The older woman hesitated, working the inside of her lip between her teeth, before she asked. “Do you have any idea which Jewel is right for you?” Under ordinary circumstances, she'd never ask a child that; taking expectations into the Birthright Ceremony was inviting disappointment. But if any child might have a useful answer …

Roueneil didn't answer for long enough that Devara thought she might have fallen asleep. When she did, her voice was quiet, barely more than a mumble. “Sunsets. Bottoms of the clouds all glowy-bright.” And to all appearances, she fell asleep on the spot.

Devara blinked at the sleeping girl and shook her head.  _I don't know what I expected._

 


	3. Chapter 3

Roueneil had woken with no signs of the nervousness from the night before and dressed in half the usual time, fidgeting with excitement to see her mother. "Sit still, child," Devara pushed her firmly into a chair while she picked up a hairbrush. "You've made a bird's-nest of your hair somehow, how exactly is beyond me, and you want to look your prettiest self for when your mama gets here."

Roueneil kicked her feet against the legs of the chair. "When will she be here? I want Mama."

Devara sighed, working the brush slowly through the girl's hair. "She'll be here just as soon as we get you presentable, and you'll get to spend all day with her. She may even get to stay the night with us. Would you like that, honey?" Roueneil nodded enthusiastically enough to nearly yank the hairbrush from Devara's hand. "Then sit still for me and let me finish this up."

The child had such gorgeous hair, Devara thought, separating it into sections to untangle carefully. It hung nearly to her waist in a heavy sheet, a hint of curl showing near her face and the ends of her hair. At least twice a week, she thought seriously of cutting it, as Roueneil's insistence on climbing trees and wandering in the woods near the temple twisted it into tangles and snarl-balls the size of the girl's small fists. But when it was clean, as now, it gleamed in the light like polished cherry wood, deep and rich. And Devara could never quite bring herself to cut it off. She settled, today at least, on braiding a thin coronet around Roueneil's head in an effort to keep her hair confined and relatively untangled until the Ceremony was over.

"Alright pet, let's go find your mama." Roueneil bounced out of the chair and took her aunt's hand, skipping in her hurry to get out to the grounds around the temple.

 

A slender woman with hair the color of warm amber turned toward the doorway as they emerged, kneeling down and opening her arms. Roueneil shrieked, "Mama!" and bolted, tearing her hand free and almost tripping over her own feet in her haste. Devara smiled fondly as she watched them embrace, pleased to see her younger sister looking so well. The last time she had visited, she had just finished weaving a new protection web for the coven with which she trained, and she had been pale and thin. Objectively, Devara knew that the Hourglass took good care of those it trained and those who served it, but it was one thing to hold that knowledge in her mind and another to try and apply it to her younger sister looking like she hadn't eaten in a week. Mellissa smiled up at her over Roueneil's head.

"It's been a while, sister," she said. "How are things here?"

"Going well enough," Devara answered, pressing a light touch to Mellissa's hand. "The temple stands, I have plenty to cook, the most beautiful niece in the world spends a lot of time bringing me flowers and herbs from the woods--"

Roueneil beamed up at them both from within her mother's arms. "That's me, I find flowers and herbs!"

"That's right you do," Mellissa said fondly. "I'm very glad to hear you're helping your auntie out with the plants you find."

"They sing colors," the girl continued blithely, "like the faeries in the lilacs and the hyacinth kittens like when Topaz had her babies."

The smile on Mellissa's face did nothing so simple as dim. Devara, watching closely, could not even have said precisely what happened to it. It dimmed, deepened, acknowledged something that was more complicated than a child's innocent prattle. The women shared a glance full of their love for the little girl who was humming between them as well as their knowledge of what power that small shell might soon hold.

"Just like that, hon'?" Devara asked, easing past the wistful moment.

Roueneil nodded and pulled against Mellissa's arms. Her mother released her and stood, letting the girl half-dance a few steps around them. "Be careful, Rou," Mellissa tweaked her hair, "don't mess up how pretty your auntie has made your hair look."

"I won't," came the silken reply as Roueneil began to twirl, arms out, eyes closed. She spun across the meadow, skirt flaring around her, until she tripped and fell over, giggling madly.

"She's doing well, really," Devara told her sister.

Mellissa wrapped her arms around herself unconsciously. "I believe you. I wish I could see her more often. I wish I could be here."

Her sister draped an arm over her shoulders and hugged her. "I know. She wishes she could see you, too, but she doesn't pine. She isn't heartbroken."

"I know that's better for her. And the Hourglass is ... not an ideal place to raise a child."

"Especially this child."

Mellissa shook her head sharply, not in negation. "Let's, let's not. Until after the Ceremony. Until--"

"Until we see her Jewel?" Devara half-shrugged. "No one in three generations on either side of the family has worn a darker Birthright than your Purple Dusk, and Mother and Father barely knew what to do with that. Two Yellow Jewels and a Rose, and then you came along complicating things," she teased, easing past the tension in both their minds with a joke.

Mellissa's lips curved in a wry smile. "They did their best, and at least they'd already dealt with your training in Craft and knew what to expect when I vanished all the curtains."

Devara chuckled. “And when they figured out you were a natural Black Widow, you'd have thought someone had given two ducks a fledgling hawk to raise.”

“They did their best,” Mellissa nodded. “I hope we do as well.”

“We will.” They watched Roueneil dance, no music audible to anyone else. “We have to.”


	4. Chapter 4

 Two other children had come to the temple for their Birthright Ceremonies: a blond boy whose mother was trying to coax him down from the spreading tree near the temple doors and a dark-haired girl who looked intensely nervous, clinging to her parents' hands. Fortunately for everyone's nerves, Anilie opened the temple doors and stepped outside before the sun had even reached its noon height. “Corren, son of Luthia, please come forward.”

The harried-looking woman under the tree gestured sharply toward her son, and pale blue light shimmered around him as he floated to the ground in front of her. He grinned, exposing the gap between his two front teeth, and followed her cheerfully to the waiting Priestess. A man from the small crowd of well-wishers stepped forward to walk with them, and the young mother took his hand. Anilie touched the boy's head and led them into the temple, letting the doors swing shut behind her.

Barely an hour passed before they emerged, the man now carrying Corren, who was crowing victoriously as he turned a Yellow Jewel over and over in his hands, flashing light from the Jewel's facets. Devara and Mellissa joined the others in applauding the family, who beamed pride and contentment.

The nervous little girl and her parents were next, and she emerged beaming with a Jewel that shone several shades, a pale Opal with frozen rainbows inside it. Her mother smiled fondly down at her, playing with her own Opal pendant, while her father stood with one arm around each of them. And then Anilie looked toward Devara and Mellissa and raised her voice. "Roueneil, daughter of Mellissa, niece of Priestess Devara, come forward!"

Roueneil raced back to them and tugged them forward, then ducked behind her mother and shuffled in place, flushed slightly and fidgeting. Anilie smiled at her and held out her hand. "Come in, little sister."

Roueneil regarded her gravely before taking her hand and following her inside. "We are not sisters."

"Today, we are sisters in the Darkness, for all the Blood are kin. Just as your mother and aunt and I are sisters, today."

Inside the temple, they gathered in front of the ceremonial flame that was never allowed to go out. Roueneil glanced around, but she had little curiosity about this room that she swept every day as part of her chores. Anilie drew her forward to look into the flame, flanked by Devara and Mellissa.

"Today, little sister, you will face the Darkness for the first time. If you stand deep enough in the abyss, the Darkness will gift you with a Jewel to hold the power your body cannot contain. If you do not, know that the Darkness cherishes you as its daughter nonetheless. But before you face the Darkness, come and see the light." She paused, letting the girl stare into the flame. "We live in the light, awake during the day and asleep during the night. We see each other and value our sight. Light gives us community, relationships, and culture. Protocol grows out of the light, and love is made possible by it. We need the light, and we must remember that and honor it, even as we honor the Darkness from which we are born."

Roueneil whispered, "It looks like home, Auntie Devara's apple cobbler. And like Mama's hair." Mellissa rested a hand on the top of her head wordlessly, eyes shining.

Anilie nodded and said, "You know the light. Come to the Altar, little sister, and meet the Darkness."

Roueneil met her eyes, her usual dreamy look replaced by far-sighted clarity. "Again."

Anilie tilted her head. "What?"

"You forgot to say 'Again'. 'Meet the Darkness, again.' That's how it goes."

Anilie looked to Devara, quick and startled, and they both paled. The liturgy had changed centuries ago, before either of their times even as members of the long-lived races. _How...?_ Anilie began to send on a psychic thread before breaking off. The mystery would have to wait. She was a Priestess performing her duties.

"Meet the Darkness again, then, Roueneil. Please come with me."

The girl followed her through a smaller set of doors opposite those through which they had entered. The Altar waited inside, a slab of polished black stone surrounded by silence so thick it pressed against them like a down quilt.

“Meditate, speak to the Darkness, and let it speak to you.” With those parting words, Anilie closed the doors and left Roueneil alone in the dark.


	5. Chapter 5

_Roueneil stood on cool floor, surrounded by darkness. Glints of silver gleamed up from the floor as if she walked on stars, and veils of tinted color drifted at the edge of vision. She looked around, up, down, but the vista was essentially the same in all directions. So she shrugged and began to walk. At first, her steps were tentative, but as she accepted the perfectly flat floor and seemingly infinite space, her movements grew more bold - and as they did, the colors grew more bright. She spun briefly in place, and scarlet flared along the edges of the color-cloud-mist nearest her. The red glow set off what appeared to be a chain reaction: flickers of green like a swarm of lightning bugs sparked into being on her left, spiraling up and away, and that called for quick three steps and leap and turn, landing with one leg outstretched for a pirouette, and a warm golden light washed through the ground under her, guiding her into just that turn, and for a time she danced a duet with the colors in the darkness, movement and spectrum blending in something more than dance or vision on their own could ever be._

_A flicker of color-and-more caught her eye and she pivoted, turning too fast and almost stumbling. A silver and blue fish floated in mid-air, fins spread around it like lacy veils. Roueneil reached to touch it, the first nearly solid thing she had seen, and it darted away. She moved to follow and realized that more and more shapes were pouring out of the darkness, flowers and feathers and fishes and frilled skirts and fancy crowns and more. She froze in place, hesitant for the first time._

_"Mama worries when I see the other things," she whispered, not knowing to whom she spoke or why._

_The silver and blue fish nudged her finger, then nibbled it. She smiled a watery smile at it. "She does, though. I don't know why. When I tell her about the colors or the other things, she doesn't smile as much."_

_A great rush of warmth spread upward through her feet, as if this strange dark place sought to reassure or protect her._

_"She's not mad at me," the girl explained to her fish. "But she looks like she thinks I'll get in trouble, even though she's my mama and she's the only one allowed to get me in trouble. I don't like her to look like that. So it's easier if I don't see the other things." The fantastic shapes around her began to dim almost immediately, losing form and definition in the darkness that surrounded them. She thrust out her hands in dismay. "Maybe ... maybe just the colors? I could keep those?" Shapes melted, blurred, ran like watercolors in the rain, but the colors settled into vivid definition. "And maybe the music?"_

_If silence could be startled, this silence was. There was no music. No sound at all. But a tentative ripple of light blue blossomed next to her like fireworks, and she danced a handful of quick steps, clicking her heels against the polished floor. The darkness seemed to relax, some unspoken tension fading, as she began to dance again, as if there weren't pale worry lines beside her mouth that faded only as the shapes around her did. Her silver and blue fish was the last to go, and as it disappeared, a pair of gold eyes gleamed in the darkness behind it, brightly enough to leave spots on her vision._

 

In the temple, Devara and Mellissa waited as patiently as they could. None of the other children had been at the Altar for more than an hour. Anilie brought them water, but their shoulders tightened with every quarter-mark the candle burned down.

Roueneil came to the end of a sequence and dropped into a low curtsy, aubergine rich as wine blooming under her feet. As it faded, it gave way to the wooden floor she swept each afternoon and the black slab of the Altar waiting before her. She bit her lip guiltily. Surely Mama and Auntie Devara wouldn't mind that she had been in the place with the other things if she came back with her Jewel like she should, right? She crept forward until she could look over the edge of the Altar.

In the center of the dark stone lay a rough Jewel, uncut and gleaming. She reached for it, needing both hands to lift it from its resting place. Once off the surface of the Altar, its color warmed to the saturated blue of deep water. Where it touched her hands, it brightened, subtle light beneath its surface indicating its bond to her mind. Roueneil walked carefully toward the doors, feeling out the newly defined depths inside her mind where a stately music built to a triumphant crescendo the color of the sea at twilight.


	6. Chapter 6

The doors to the Altar creaked open, and all three women spun to face them. Roueneil emerged holding an uncut Jewel – dark, Devara saw with a complex mixture of resignation and satisfaction – and walking with measured steps toward them. Mellissa's heart gave a single hard thump as Roueneil held out her Jewel. She brushed her fingers over it, smiling faintly at the answering flare the already-bonded Jewel gave off, and kissed her daughter's forehead.

“That's a Sapphire, Rou,” she said. “You wear the darkest Jewel our family has ever had.”

“Is that good?” Roueneil asked. “It sings like Auntie Devara's mint plants and the ones with the little white flower clouds.”

“Basil,” Devara filled in absently, reaching for her niece's mind on a Purple Dusk thread. _Honey_ , she sent, _can you hear me_?

Roueneil jumped as if she'd been bitten and stared wide-eyed at her aunt. “You talked in my head!” she shrieked in glee. “Teach me how!”

Both women chuckled, and Anilie knelt down to meet Roueneil's eyes. “You've been given a great gift by the Darkness. Tomorrow, we'll start teaching you how to use it, okay? For now, let's go get you some food and give you some time to get used to this new power.” At Roueneil's nod, they left the Temple together.

Those assembled outside applauded as they emerged. Devara's tense shoulders slowly relaxed as she heard only the usual congratulations issued to her niece. She had warned everyone not to say anything out of the ordinary to the girl, no matter the outcome of the ceremony – though, she reflected wryly, her sister's flat command had probably carried more weight. _“No one is to say anything even remotely unusual to my daughter.”_ One ignored such an order from a Black Widow at great peril, and when that Black Widow was also a mother, Devara was not sure there was ever a good reason to ignore her command.

 

That night, while Roueneil slept, the two sisters sat awake in different rooms. Devara sat before the hearth in the kitchen, the fire sunk down to coals but still warm. _Birthright Sapphire,_ she mused. Mellissa's Opal Jewel of Rank was a light Jewel, two full ranks lighter. _How are we going to train her?_ The temple, though attached to Yaenno, a fairly prosperous, albeit small, city in Dhemlan, had no dark-Jeweled Priests or Priestesses currently serving. _Finding a good Craft teacher is supposed to be easier for us temple-folk,_ Devara grumbled even to herself. _That's one of the services temples are here to provide. But we'll need someone wearing a dark enough Jewel to be able to fix her mistakes and teach her techniques she'll actually use, with the right temperament and patience – it's hard for any dark-Jeweled child, but especially for this one …_ She sipped her hot cider, letting the cinnamon warm her throat.

 

Mellissa had gone to the Hourglass at fifteen, beginning her training in the Craft that Black Widows used: weaving tangled webs of dreams and visions in which to see the future, illusion spells, poisons, and the safest (not safe, entirely, never that) routes along the borders of the Twisted Kingdom. Their parents had known since Mellissa started puberty that this would be her path: if nothing else, the venomous snake-tooth growing in under the nail of her left ring finger would have given it away. Devara had already been an initiate at the temple, being trained as a Priestess and learning hearth-craft and cooking from the old kitchen mistress, who had been delighted to find a kindred soul to whom she could pass on her position. Their parents, a merchant and his shopkeeper wife, both Yellow-Jeweled, had been so proud of their daughters. They'd seen comfortable, solid futures for them both, training and places to which they could belong forever, careers. And they had lived long enough to see those dreams fulfilled, both daughters fully trained and accepted, before they succumbed to a wicked fever Yaenno's Healers could not fight off. Devara missed them, quietly, especially when the seasons turned. _Though what they would have made of Roueneil, perhaps it's better we don't know._

The Hourglass kept its initiates close for the final years of their training, but they weren't forbidden to leave the coven for short times. Mellissa had shown up at the temple shortly after dawn, her face finally looking more like an adult's than a teenager's and grinning fit to burst, with an Opal Jewel set in a gleaming brooch on her breast. Devara had stared blankly, sleep-muddled, before the significance of what she was seeing sank in, and she let out a whoop and hugged her sister tight. They had talked nearly the whole day of their plans for the future, and Mellissa had mentioned a new guard troop transferring from an Hourglass Coven in southern Glacia – not so very far away, though it sounded like another world from the breathy excitement in Mellissa's voice – to her own. Devara had tucked her indulgent smile away where it wouldn't drive her younger sister to accusations of being patronizing and too-loud protestations of her innocence.

So no one was terribly surprised when she wound up pregnant. Exasperated, maybe, or at least Devara was; she couldn't speak for Mellissa's teachers or the other Black Widows in her coven. But that was hardly a new feeling to an older sister. The father, Mellissa told her, blushing and unable to stop smiling, was a Glacian Prince, white-blond and tall with bright blue eyes that matched his Summer-sky Jewel. He had told Mellissa that he'd like paternity recorded, so that their child would know he or she was no bastard with a shiftless or ashamed father, but that he needed no paternal rights granted. He had been recalled to Glacia a few scant months after arriving in Dhemlan, some sort of family crisis. He had asked if she wanted him to come back, to be a father.

And then Devara was surprised. "I told him no," Mellissa said firmly, nodding to herself. "I wanted his child, you know I've always wanted to be a mother, and I will treasure the time we had together, but he doesn't really want to be a father yet and I don't want to sit around waiting for him.

Besides," she glanced around the sunny glade in which they sat, out in the woods near the temple, hands laid protectively over the slight swell of her belly, "this girl is going to be something special. Dev, I've seen her in a web already."

Devara's blood had chilled, and she knew she had paled. She wasn't afraid of Mellissa – hard to be afraid of someone whose diapers you've smelled and who's stolen your dollies while you're trying to play with them – but everyone sane was cautious of the Hourglass and their abilities. That was how one remained sane. Black Widows were members of the Blood, trained to exacting standards and raised in the same ethics and Protocol as every other caste. That didn't make them any less capable of shattering someone's mind, poisoning her in her sleep, or weaving an illusion web tight enough to walk him off a cliff. Black Widows answered only to Queens and Warlord Princes, the ruling caste and their immediate bulwark of support, and everyone else stood at a respectful distance. By Jewel and caste, her little sister outranked her, though reminders such as this were few.

"What did you see?" she heard herself ask without consciously forming the question. She bit her tongue in annoyance. It was rude, beyond rude, to ask one of the Hourglass for details of their private visions. One took their advice or not; one did not interrogate. "You don't have to--" she began, but Mellissa was already speaking, a certain relief in her voice, as if she had been waiting to be asked.

"I saw a flower like a many-petalled hyacinth open, a bell-shaped blossom covered in hundreds of tiny trumpet flowers. I saw a rainbow arch across a sky and then spread, bleeding colors onto the clouds until everything shone and there was no pattern at all. And," she paused, searching for words to give shape to the maelstrom of sensation in which her tangled web had caught her, "I saw a shining web, the most complex weaving I've ever seen, in the depths of the abyss. I saw tattered shadows in the Darkness, some flickering different colors, some blacker than black, sticking to it and making the pattern even more complex. A great shaping, Dev, something amazing and once-in-a-lifetime coming into being." Her eyes shone as she stopped, her hands clasped to her breast.

"And you think this something is your child," Devara stated cautiously. She didn't want to insult her sister, but didn't all first-time mothers have this kind of wild fancy about her child?

"My daughter," Mellissa corrected. "She is going to be something wonderful. I ... I think she's going to be Witch."

And for the second time in a handful of minutes, Devara found herself speechless. Witch? Dreams given flesh by the Darkness, the dreams of the Blood coalescing in the womb of Mother Night from which they all came? Witch was a myth, the most treasured myth of the Blood. She was their every hope – but she came from the Darkness when she was needed. What could be going so horribly wrong that the daughter of the Darkness itself would be necessary?

“Are you sure?” _Could there be some other explanation for what Mellissa had seen?_

"I'm as sure as I can be," she answered softly. "I've never seen the kinds of things that web showed me. I think the Darkness was reaching out to tell me this, so we could prepare for her. You know," a watery smile, "you know I can't raise her in the Hourglass."

Devara winced. She hadn't even thought about that part of it. "You'll have to for a little while -- it's not like you can just hand an infant off to someone else."

"I know that," Mellissa huffed, sounding like the girl she'd been years ago. "But once she's old enough to be walking around, getting into things -- I'm still learning, and I won't be able to keep up with her all of the time, and she ..."

"The Hourglass Coven is respectable and wise," Devara said firmly, "but it's no place for a young girl before she blossoms." Their mother had said this often as Mellissa's interest in the Black Widows who lived in the neighboring city of Hierahn grew. She had steadfastly refused to let her daughter spend any unsupervised time with them until she began puberty, insisting that there would be plenty of time after that for her to learn what they had to teach. Mellissa had been wildly frustrated at the time, impatient and chafing at the restrictions, but after she'd begun her training, she'd admitted freely that their mother had been right in her decision. A young girl could get into entirely too much trouble around the Black Widows, the dangerous Craft they used, and the men who guarded and served the coven.

Mellissa nodded, revisiting the same memories. "I hoped she could stay here with you, until she's old enough to come with me."

"I-- what, just leave her here? Do you think you could stand to do that?" _I can't be a mother yet! I'm not ready!_ an inner voice shrieked, but she set it aside to be contemplated and likely ignored later.

"I'd visit! I'd come and see her as often as I could, stay over, everything, I just..." Mellissa's voice cracked. "I can't have her with me, and you know I can't leave yet. When I can, probably around the time she's ready for the Birthright Ceremony, I could come here and stay with you until she needs the Hourglass's training."

"You seem very certain she'll be a Black Widow."

Mellissa smiled wryly. "She isn't the first child Jastrom's fathered, and all of the girls have been natural Black Widows. I can't imagine this particular girl will be the exception."

"Uhh...oh. So she'll have siblings, then. That's a thing might make her life easier, or harder."

"We'll just have to see." Devara wondered if Mellissa were aware of the way her hands fluttered around her belly, stroking small touches across the barely visible curve. Only a few weeks along and already this protective. "Anyway, yes, I think she'll need the Hourglass training before she's fully grown, to deal with what she is if for no other reason. Even if she isn't naturally inclined, I'll want to see her properly trained."

"Do you plan to tell her?" Devara strove to keep her voice neutral, but her mind was busy supplying all the tantrums thrown, all the heartbreak, the one suicide a few decades back after Birthright Ceremonies or Offerings to the Darkness when people were confronted by a stark reality that wouldn't bend to the Special Destiny they thought they were intended to have. _It's never been anything but a recipe for disaster, please tell me you aren't planning to do that to your baby..._

"Of course not!" Mellissa chopped a hand sideways through the air as if she could push the question away. "I want her to grow up never hearing it even suggested. I want... oh Dev, I want to take care of her and protect her, and how will I ever be able to do that?"

Devara scrambled forward to hug her younger sister as Mellissa started crying, shoulders shaking. She held her close and rubbed her back, murmuring soothing sounds. It only lasted a minute or two before Mellissa sat up, wiping her eyes and smiling shakily. "Sorry about that. I seem to have missed the nausea Mother always talked about, but I got the crying fits twice as hard to make up for it."

"It's all right," Devara reassured her, holding her hand. "And yes, if you want her to, to foster her until you can join her, I'll be honored to take care of my niece."

Mellissa's smile brightened like curtains being drawn back. "Your niece. That has a nice ring to it, Auntie."

Devara flicked her hand and sent a shower of leaves flying at her face. "Brat child, don't make me change my mind."

"You won't." Mellissa's voice seemed to echo oddly, as if she spoke in an empty cavern, ringing and wild. "This girl will be your treasure, and we will both do everything we can to see her brought up gently and with care, because she will be something no one living has ever seen before nor will see again, and we have been entrusted with making sure she uses that power with grace and love instead of spite and hurt."

Devara shivered, and Mellissa blinked and gathered herself to stand. "Here, you're cold, let's go inside. I can't believe I kept you sitting out here, so selfish, you don't even like the weather to be chilly," her chatter ran like a cheerful brook in the background of Devara's thoughts as the two women walked back to the temple.

 

Roueneil had been a bright, curious toddler who wanted to touch, smell, and taste everything her little fingers could wrap around. The other Priests and Priestesses had adored her for her fey grace and fearless nature, and they accepted her reluctance to talk to them. Whenever possible, she used gestures, her expressive eyes, or occasional words to communicate her wishes. It had been months before Devara caught her dancing in a silent room, clearly marking out beats and rhythms that simply did not exist. Breathless, she had watched the darting charm of a young girl transform into a formless symphony of light, shadow, bend, curve, and movement. When Roueneil swept a curtsy Devara had never seen before, pressed low to the floor, she couldn't help the applause that burst out of her. Roueneil shot her a wide-eyed glance and darted a few steps away as if trying to distance herself from the spell she'd just woven.

"Where did you learn to dance like that?" she asked. Perhaps the Hourglass had dancers her niece had observed, her mind supplied, although that still wouldn't account for the perfection of her mimicry.

“I didn't,” came the soft reply.

“Then how did you know what to do?” Surely steps that precise, leaps like that, had to have been learned somewhere, didn't they?

“The music shows me. The light sings through the window, and the shadows drum counterpoint like Jeine and Laurell do at our dances.”

Devara stared blankly at her. _Light doesn't sing and shadows don't drum, but I don't think she's insane, what will I be inflicting on her if I tell her what she's perceiving isn't real? I can't shut her down like that, especially not this girl._ “Oh,” she finally forced out. “Well, I've never heard light sing myself, but maybe you and I don't hear quite the same. Do you think you could dance for me again?”

Roueneil beamed and nodded and flew back into motion, and Devara let her eyes relax and follow the dance. At first she saw a young girl spinning in the sunlight that fell in bars across the floor, and then the same shift happened: movement, light, shadow, the sweep of her arm and arch of her body blended together into a seamless whole, a dance that could only have occurred in this place, at this time, a synthesis of self and setting. Devara found tears standing in her eyes and burst into applause as Roueneil again fell into her low curtsy.

The shy smile the girl darted toward her made her wonder what other reactions she'd faced to her dancing. Certainly it was nothing like either the traditional festival dances or anything practiced in the temple, but it didn't look wholly outlandish, only wild and distinctly … _Otherworldly_. _That's the only way to describe it, and that must be what set others off. No matter, I'll just see to it everybody here knows she's had some pains about it before she came to us. They'll be gentle with her._


	7. Chapter 7

 Mellissa leaned back in her chair, massaging the knots along her neck and shoulders. The coven had frames large enough to weave a tangled web while standing, but none of those were in any way portable, so Black Widows who traveled had to make do with the smaller tabletop frames. Leaning over them inevitably gave her aches from being hunched over, but sometimes there was no help for it. Roueneil had come out of her Birthright Ceremony wearing the darkest Jewel their family had ever worn, and that changed things ... well, perhaps not changed. Perhaps confirmed. It definitely meant she and Devara needed to be prepared for the future.

She studied the intertwining threads and knots, skimming over some parts of the mess, peering longer at others. No one who wasn't trained by the Hourglass could read or weave a tangled web, and that skill was hard-won. She had walked the borders of the Twisted Kingdom, that inner landscape others might call madness, in order to learn the language of symbols and how those symbols would present themselves in thread. In a pinch, any thread would do, but the Hourglass spun and treated a specific type of silk for its initiates to use for the kind of weaving. No two webs would ever look the same, even woven by two witches asking the same question and trained by the same teachers. The language of symbols was an individual one, and earning it was a process of unclogging one's inner 'ears' to let the Darkness speak through hands and eyes without one's brain getting in the way.

This web spoke of changes coming. She saw the same inrushing coalescence she had seen while pregnant, all those years ago, surmounted by a fiery disc that could be the rising sun or its setting. A wave held poised, and under and through it, a road threaded, its beginning marked by a large, deep pawprint. All around the edges, over and over, she saw the sign for hearth-and-home repeated. She nodded, confirming her decision to herself. She had completed her training and was a fully certified Black Widow; she was no longer required to live with the Hourglass coven (for the safety of those around her as much as for her own). She could leave, move somewhere else and settle there. Settle, say, in her daughter's home.

She carefully removed the web and tossed it into the fire, letting it burn down to ash. Just because no one else could read a tangled web didn't mean it was a good idea to leave them lying around. On impressionable minds, that kind of weaving could have a less than optimal effect, even unintended. When the web was fully consumed by the flames, she headed for the kitchen. That's where Devara was sure to be, even this late at night.

 

"You're sure? You'll be able to stay here, be with us all the time?"

"I may have to travel occasionally, here or there, but it would only be short trips. I'll be able to live here."

Devara hugged her tightly, unable to stop smiling and not even wanting to try. "I'm so glad, and Roueneil will be so glad, too." She released her sister and sat back. "How long will it take you to pack? Do you need me to help move your things?"

"No, I can borrow one of the coven's wagons and a stablehand to drive it, that won't be a problem. It shouldn't take me more than a week or so to wrap up everything there and come back, but don't tell her until I'm actually here, okay? I don't want to disappoint her or leave her waiting if I get delayed."

"That's a good plan, and that way you'll be a surprise, too." Devara hugged her again. "The best surprise, and then we can all be together."

 

"Mama, Mama!" Roueneil ran shrieking out the door, her Sapphire pendant bouncing against her chest. It had been nearly a fortnight since Mellissa returned to the Hourglass to pack her belongings and move in with Devara at the temple. Devara had looked for her wagon every day, trying to keep Roueneil from picking up on her nerves. (At which she had failed miserably: _Is the meadow turning into boiling lava? Are the Seraechian dancers coming back? Is Lord Randyll riding Summer Day without his shirt on again? Why won't you tell me what's going on??_ )

Mellissa caught and twirled her around, kissing her cheeks and forehead. "Yes sweetie, surprise! Are you happy to see me?"

Roueneil's laughter rang out like chimes, unfettered and resonant. Devara propped the door open and helped Mellissa carry in her bags and boxes. "Good news," she told them both. "I found a retired teacher in Yaenno who wears the Green and is willing to visit us for Craft lessons, so Rou's lessons can start tomorrow!"

 


	8. Chapter 8

“No, don't push your whole arm through; just ease the ribbon into it!” Tiann's voice cut into Roueneil's concentration, and she lost control, tipping forward and falling through the wooden table. She hit the floor with an _oomph_ and lay there blinking. Above her, colors had spread through the wood, pale beech and dark cherry ripples through the rich brown polish.

Tiann pressed her fingertips against her temples. Teaching a student to move solid objects through each other was one of the building blocks of Craft and a necessary prelude to learning how to walk through walls or doors themselves. Somehow, though, Roueneil seemed to be grasping things in the wrong order. She could move herself, anything she held, anything she could manipulate with Craft, through anything else -- so long as she wanted to. If she had no motivation, she had no ability. It made testing her nearly impossible. And setting limits such as "weave this ribbon through that table without putting your hand in it" verged on an utter waste of breath.

It had been like this the entire time she'd been tutoring the girl. She could grasp concepts quickly and apply them in nearly any way to which she felt inclined, so long as she felt inclined. If she saw no use for something, explaining it accomplished nothing. She could walk through walls because she was lazy -- or because she had never really believed there was a reason she shouldn't be able to, Tiann was not sure which. She could heat up or chill a room with a thought, because she didn't want to be uncomfortable, and heavens forbid she see her mother shiver. The entire temple would feel like a steamroom until she was convinced Mellissa was warm enough.

"That's--" Roueneil's lips turned downward, dismay clear on her young face. "That's well enough for now, dear. Can you tell me what happened that you fell?"

"I was trying to turn the ribbon, except you said not to use my hands, so I was trying to use my Jewel and think 'turn' and also 'through' at the same time, so it would turn and come back up to me, and, and then I fell, only I was still thinking 'through', so I ... fell through."

It was supposed to take concentrated effort to move one solid object through another, and even more effort if one of those objects were living. It was not supposed to be the result of "thinking 'through'" while falling.

Apparently Roueneil did not care what it was supposed to be.

 

That afternoon, Devara was waiting in the kitchen after her Craft lessons with Tiann were over. "Do you still want to learn hearth-Craft?" she asked her subdued-looking niece.

Roueneil nodded, mustering up some of her usual enthusiasm.

"Are you sure? You've learned a lot of the duties of a Priestess, and those you have left will have to wait until you choose a temple to train in and serve at for a time. But you're still learning advanced Craft with Tiann, and soon you'll be needing lessons from the Hourglass, and you may not have time for all of these things."

"Then I'll learn until I don't have time anymore." When her eyes cleared with determination, they shone a blue darker than her Sapphire, nearly indigo. Devara knew from experience it wasn't worth trying to argue with that gaze.

“Alright honey, that's fine. Now look, here's how you set temperatures for baking.”

 

Mellissa found Devara in the kitchen, as usual, pacing and clutching at her hair, which was not usual.

“I don't understand your daughter,” she said bluntly.

Mellissa blinked. “I'm not sure how that even merits saying at this point?”

“We started on hearth-Craft today.”

Mellissa nodded warily.

“I showed her the cooking temperature spells. There's the sensory one for internal temperature for what you're baking, the loop that feeds that one into the overall temperature control, and the control for the oven. People get interested in hearth-Craft before they want to learn the skills or because they have an instinctive understanding of the ways these types of small things all work together.” She shook her head and resumed pacing.

Mellissa nodded again.

“Except for your daughter.”

Mellissa stopped nodding.

“Oh, she learned each one of the spells,” pace pace turn, “and she got them all to connect correctly,” turn pace pace, “but she had to disassemble all of mine and study them! She has no instinct for this and no apparent desire to do anything with what she's learning; she just wants to know! I don't understand it!”

“So, she's capable of learning the spells, but you don't understand why she wants to since she has none of the usual reasons for doing so or the typical personality that lends itself to hearth-Craft?”

Devara nodded and sank down onto the bench in front of the fire. “It's not that I mind teaching her, I just don't understand why she wants to learn something she so clearly has no natural inclination towards.”

“Because you can do it,” came a small voice from the doorway, causing both women to flinch and jump. Roueneil scuffed the toe of one foot against the heel of the other.

“What's that, hon'?” Devara asked.

“You can do it. You like cooking, and you take care of everybody and keep everything all homey and warm, and I wanted to be able to help make people happy like you do.”

Mellissa pulled her into a hug and moved her to stand near them. “My sweetheart, you do make people happy. We're happy to spend every day with you. Auntie Devara just has a certain set of skills she uses. You don't have to have her skills; you can learn your own.”

“I want to learn yours,” Roueneil insisted, holding Devara's eyes with her own. “I want baked bread and cider happiness, not just incense and webs.”

Devara nodded slowly, her earlier frustration melting away. “If that's what you want, and you're sure, I'll teach you. But make sure you're learning for your own reasons, and not for anyone else's.”


	9. Chapter 9

 Mellissa tore open the envelope, ripping through the Hourglass's seal which held it closed. “Devara,” she called. “The coven says I'm needed back there tonight.”

Devara read the short letter herself. It betokened no obvious urgency, but it did not leave any room for argument or refusal, either. “You know them – does this sound like they want you to stay a while?”

“I don't think so,” Mellissa replied, folding a change of clothes. “I'll probably be back late tonight or tomorrow morning.” She kissed Roueneil on the forehead and hugged her tightly. “See you both soon.”

 

One of her former teachers, the Black Widow Shaye, greeted Mellissa as she arrived. "It's good to see you again," she said as they embraced. "I'd invite you to come sit down and catch up, but I think Hanna wants to see you before anything else happens."

Mellissa suppressed a twinge of anxiety. If anything were seriously wrong, surely the letter would have said so. "If you say so, you're probably right. Any idea where she is?"

"In her office," came the sympathetic reply. "Last night, a messenger of some kind came through, and she spent a while closeted with him. She's been waiting for you the better part of the day."

"A messenger from where?"

"Glacia, so," Shaye smiled tightly, "I have no idea what could be going on."

 

She knocked on Hanna's door, reminding herself that nothing too terrible could be going on. Her internal insistence bolstered her rapidly fading confidence through sheer force of will.

"Come in," Hanna's brisk tone was unmistakable even through an intervening layer of wood. Mellissa eased the door open and stepped inside -- then froze.

A fire burned merrily in the small hearth, and Hanna's ferociously organized desk looked no different than usual. But in front of her desk, lit warmly by the small fire, sprawled an extraordinarily fluffy dog. At least, Mellissa thought it was a dog, until it stretched. Then she could see the feline arch of its back, the wickedly curved claws, and the points of its tufted ears. A gigantic cat some five feet long lay lounging before Hanna's desk, regarding her with sleepy, half-closed amber eyes.

"H- Hanna?" she squeaked.

"Bring yourself further in here," Hanna ordered, barely looking up from her paperwork long enough to nod. "He won't hurt you. In fact, here, let me introduce you." She set the quill pen down carefully and sat back, meeting Mellissa's eyes. "Prince Orischaen, may I present Lady Mellissa, Black Widow of the Hourglass coven. Mellissa, I present Prince Orischaen, of Arceria, who has brought us a message that required your presence."

 _Prince. Blood. Kindred?_ Mellissa bobbled a polite curtsy, moving automatically while her mind tried to catch its balance. The kindred -- Blood of the various animal species -- rarely left their own Territories and almost never did so without a human with whom they had some kind of bond or partnership. They weren't exactly xenophobic, but they were private. She had heard of the great Arcerian cats who lived in the mountains of Glacia and the remote northern reaches, but she had never expected to see one, let alone meet one napping in the coven that had trained her.

"Well met, Prince Orischaen," she managed. On a burst of curiosity, she reached out to read his Jewel rank as she would on meeting any new member of the Blood. What she found startled her: he wore Birthright Purple Dusk, just as she did, and a Green Jewel of Rank. Were it not for the differences in their castes, he would outrank her. Trying to read facial expressions off a cat was nearly impossible, but she suspected that he knew what she had just realized and was politely pleased about it. _Something about his whiskers seems smug._

Unprompted, she skirted around the edge of the rug to ease into the armchair at the corner of Hanna's desk. Orischaen pulled himself up into a sitting position and tucked his paws out of sight.

"Mellissa, Orischaen comes to us from one of the Hourglass covens in Glacia," Hanna said. "Our sisters sent him to us, and their message and his request led me to believe that sending for you was the wisest course of action."

Mellissa had barely begun to nod when a cool voice slid into her mind. _I asked the Black Widows near our den what my dreams meant. For many nights now I have dreamed of the same kitt– girl. The same human girl. I asked what it meant that I saw her and how I could find her. They wove a web for me to sleep under, and the next day, they sent me here._

Mellissa was afraid she knew too well where this was heading. The sinking feeling in her stomach was nearly enough to overpower her delight at the touch of a kindred mind, with its faint touch of alien understanding. "What girl is it you're looking for, Prince?"

Hanna pressed her lips together as if trying not to smile. _You know what he's going to say_ , she sent on a distaff thread that only Mellissa could hear.

 _I can pretend not to know for as long as possible if I want_ , Mellissa sent back.

_The girl in my dreams is young, younger for her people than I am for mine. She has wings like twilight and eyes like the night, and she smells like the beginning of first hunt and like the river near our den when it is not ice._

Mellissa blinked, considering. “Do you know what she looks like?”

The cat deliberately shook his head from one side to the other, mimicking the human gesture. _I do not see her face. But I will know her when I find her. The Black Widows said she is the one who dances in the Darkness and that I should come here._

Mellissa's heart thudded in her chest. _I knew what raising her would be like, I knew that things would start happening and those things would be new and strange beyond imagining_ , she told herself firmly, ignoring the fact that she hadn't known, couldn't have known, just what raising a myth would entail, given the complete lack of personal experience anyone could contribute. “I think I may know the girl you seek. I think,” she swallowed, “I think she may be my daughter.”

Orischaen surged to his feet in a single fluid motion, putting his eyes significantly closer to Mellissa's own. She tried to control her flinch and squeak as best she could. All the kindred Prince could send to her was a wash of eager anticipation held in place, barely, by manners and Protocol.

“She isn't here,” Hanna's precise enunciation cut through the tension. “Mellissa trained with us, but she and her daughter do not reside here.” As Orischaen swiveled his head to stare at her, she continued, “If you would care to remain here tonight, both of you, as our guests, perhaps Mellissa would be willing to escort you to her home for a visit tomorrow morning?”

 _I like how you made that sound like a question even though it obviously was not,_ Mellissa sent on a distaff thread to Hanna.

_He came here looking for Witch. We haven't been putting out announcements about your daughter or anything of the sort, you know how we've respected your privacy and her childhood, but as she comes into her power, you also know the ripples are going to be felt. The Darkness has sent him, and you and I both know we cannot turn him away._


	10. Chapter 10

 The next morning, Hanna lent Mellissa and Orischaen a small coach and footman to get back to Yaenno faster. Even riding the Opal wind, though, they would be traveling for a couple of hours.

 _What will we talk about? Does he want to interrogate me about Roueneil? What if he gets hungry?_ Mellissa's worrying went for naught when they entered the coach. The Arcerian cat paced a small circle on the floor, curled up, and, to all appearances, fell immediately asleep. Eventually, Mellissa permitted herself to doze lightly as well, making up for some of the sleep she had lost fretting the night before.

 

As the Hourglass's footman brought the coach in for a landing, she caught Devara on a psychic thread. _You should come out and meet us at the landing web._

 _Us?_ Devara sent back, absently curious.

 _I'm bringing a guest. You'll be,_ she glanced down at the mound of sleeping cat, _very surprised. And bring Roueneil along too, please._

The sense of Devara's curiosity sharpened, but she respected her sister's unspoken wishes and didn't pry.

 

When the coach settled on the landing web, Orischaen stretched languorously before sitting up, leaving Mellissa a clear path to the door. She stepped out first, and the hair on the back of her neck lifted as she realized she could neither see nor hear the predator behind her. Devara and Roueneil came forward, cheerful and smiling, and she could see the moment that Orischaen appeared from the coach behind her. Their strides checked – or, no, she had assumed both of them would stop, startled. It took her eyes a moment to catch up to what her brain had expected. Devara had blanched. Roueneil had not, light dancer's steps carrying her forward as if she floated, and the cat was a silent white streak charging toward her.

Mellissa did not even have time to be terrified before Orischaen had bowled Roueneil over and was tucked into her lap, as much as he could be given that he was roughly the same size as her. The ferocious claws were hidden as his giant paws patted her face and shoulders, and he butted against her chin in the same gesture of affection a much smaller, more normal-sized cat would have used. Against her will, Mellissa found a smile on her lips, one that only grew as she recognized the low thrumming in the ground for what it was: the steady purring of a three-hundred-pound cat. Roueneil's laughter rang out above it, silky and chiming like bells, uninhibited by the concerns creasing her mother and aunt's brows.

Devara nudged her shoulder. “Explanations now?” she asked with exaggerated politeness.

“Hmmmmm,” Mellissa dragged out the syllable, enjoying the way Devara's lips pressed together harder and harder. At last, she relented. “He's an Arcerian Prince named Orischaen who wears the Green, and when he asked the Hourglass to help him interpret his recurring dreams of a young human girl, they sent him here.”

“A young human...?” Devara tilted her head as she looked at the girl and girl-sized cat curled around each other on the ground. “ _Oh._ Oh, no. No, _really_?”

“Apparently.

"I don't suppose there's any possibility he wants to meet her, perhaps have dinner, and then head home?" Devara asked in the tone of a person desperately clinging to a hope she is increasingly certain is pointless.

"Look at them," Mellissa answered. "Does that look like he only wanted a brief meet and greet?"

"No," Devara said glumly. "It looks like I need to start figuring out how to feed a three- or four- hundred-pound cat for the indefinite future."

"If it helps, he says he's only about a year and a half old, so he's probably going to get bigger."

"Oh, thank you for that. You say the nicest things."

 

More afternoons than not, Devara and Mellissa wound up hunting Roueneil down to make sure she showed up for dinner. She never intended to skip meals, but, conscious of the demands a dark Jewel placed on a young, growing body, they were less inclined to let her absentmindedness endanger her regular eating. They were pleasantly surprised to discover that Orischaen made a compelling ally in this endeavor, as a girl who could put off aunt or mother with "I'll be in as soon as I find one more dandelion" had far fewer excuses when faced with the growling stomach of a cat several times her own weight.

 

Devara found them just inside the wooded area near the temple. Roueneil was tying small strips of brightly colored ribbons into Orischaen's fur, while the cat flattened his ears back, scrunched his eyes shut, and held very still. His posture radiated indignity, though he was obviously capable of ending the activity if it truly upset him.

"Why are you decorating Orischaen, Rou?" Devara asked. "Was he not pretty enough before?"

The feline Prince's eyes slit barely open and fixed on Devara with an intensity that would have terrified her only a few weeks before. It was truly surprising, she reflected, how quickly one could adjust to previously unimaginable situations.

Roueneil smiled up at her, dark eyes unreadably distant. "It's for the bunnies," she explained cheerfully, "so they won't realize Orischaen is one of them."

Devara opened her mouth, then closed it. "Was that a serious concern before the ribbons?"

"Oh yes," Roueneil answered. "The rabbits were beginning to suspect, and soon they would have adopted him into one of their warrens. But rabbits do not like ribbons."

She looked back at the cat's face. His eyes were fully opened now, and his ears stood upright. _Do not worry about her, Priestess,_ he sent on a private psychic thread. _She cannot always tell the difference between the dreams that birthed her and the waking world in which she walks. The Darkness is formless and trackless, and she wanders where she will. But I will always follow her, and always bring her back._

Devara nodded, letting herself be at least somewhat reassured by his words. "Well, I wanted to let you know dinner is standing ready, if you have the rabbit crisis under control."

"I don't think 'crisis' is quite the right word," Roueneil pursed her lips. "Maybe 'issue' or 'concern'." Her musing was interrupted when Orischaen twisted his neck and caught her hand in his jaws, holding her firmly enough to keep her from moving but not breaking the skin. She blinked at him. "What?"

Orischaen produced a half-growl, half-whimper that would have done a starving newborn kitten credit. Roueneil blinked, then blinked again. "Dinner?" She looked back up at her aunt, considered, and got to her feet. "Dinner."  


	11. Chapter 11

Saya hurled the third knife toward the target and grunted with satisfaction as it sank in up to its hilt. He turned to the thin man next to him and growled, “You're up next.”

The man swallowed hard and lifted his tankard in a slightly trembling hand to take a drink. "I hate playing this gods-cursed game with you, you hulking barbarian. I think you cheat."

"It en't cheating to be good at something, weaver," Saya grunted as he retrieved his own beer.

"It might be cheating if your whole entire race is good at it," the other man retorted. He picked three flat throwing knives up from the bar, weighing the heft of one in his left hand. "I think there's some genetic component. Perhaps an evolutionary advantage to being able to bilk honest, hard-working citizens out of their money in foolish tavern bets."

"Maybe yer hard-working citizens should make better choices with their hard-earned money then." Saya thumped a friendly arm across the other man's shoulders, earning a probably exaggerated wheeze and stagger. "C'mon, Luc, take yer damn throws so y'can stand me a round."

"I might win, you know."

Saya snorted.

"I have on occasion won things! More than one occasion!"

Saya stared pointedly away into the distance.

Luc sighed dramatically and whipped the first knife at the bullseye on the opposite wall. It struck inside the first ring. The second one hit dead center. Saya raised his eyebrows expectantly. The third one hit the inner edge of the second ring.

Luc pursed his lips together warningly as he turned back toward the bar. Saya leaned on his elbows and said nothing. He continued to say nothing as Luc removed his empty tankard and replaced it with a full one, beer sloshing over the edge. He said nothing as Luc retrieved all of the knives and returned them to the barkeep, and he said nothing when Luc settled on the stool next to him with his own beer and sighed.

"You can say it."

"Nothing to say," came the too-casual reply.

"There will come a day when I beat you at this."

"I'm sure that's a thing as'll happen someday." Luc glanced up, startled, in time to hear, "Mebbe 'round the time m'fingers are rotting off in the ground."

The glare he leveled on the other man would have withered roses and soured milk, and he held it as long as he could – until their eyes met and they both laughed, Saya pounding him on the back again.

They made a strange pair, Saya Winterson and Luc Skotadi, often known as Dark Luc. Saya stood a full head taller than Luc, who was nearly six feet tall himself. The burly Glacian Warlord Prince took up twice as much room at the bar as anyone else, partly because of the sheer breadth of his shoulders and partly because no one wanted to crowd a man who wore four easily visible weapons and carried himself like a man well-prepared with less-easily-visible weapons. Sword and dagger hilts wrapped in leather thongs could be seen at his hips, and two throwing knives were strapped to his forearms. Straps of leather and fabric crisscrossed his chest and legs, providing ample opportunities to stash other blades. His pale hair was caught back in a myriad of braids tied into a low tail at the nape of his neck, falling past his shoulders, and his pale skin and blue-green eyes were typical of Glacia and neighboring Prieje. Unlike most of the Blood, who chose to set their Birthright Jewels and Jewels of Rank into distinct sets of jewelry to be worn separately, Saya wore both at once: silver wristcuffs gleamed with tiny Summer-sky Jewel chips arranged in swirling patterns like falling snow, while a solid Opal cabochon hung around his neck, matching the Opal ring on his left hand.

Unlike Saya, who rarely seemed overtly threatening but never seemed fully relaxed either, Luc lounged at his ease against the bar. He wore looser clothes and a short cape. A careful eye might have picked out the hafts of flat knives strapped under his sleeves and against his thighs, but a careful eye might also have gotten distracted by the almost-painfully bright reds, blues, golds, and silvers with which his clothes were printed. He carried a crossbow as if he'd never used one, but he'd handled the throwing knives the same way, right up until they were buried in the bullseye target. The Opal ring on his left hand was an exact match for Saya's, though the Red ring on his right was set differently. A simple chain around his neck held a Red Jewel and, an honor few males of any race or caste could claim, the hourglass pendant that marked a trained Black Widow. Against his dark skin, both shone with a subtle fire that drew the eye, adornment and warning at once.

You would have been hard-pressed to find anyone in Prieje or the neighboring areas of Glacia or Dhemlan who didn't know of Saya Winterson and Dark Luc Skotadi. For months, they had been at the forefront of a quiet war against Lady Ankira, the Territory Queen of Prieje. Taxes were stolen, and tax collectors disappeared. Some resurfaced weeks later. Others, particularly those known for stripping everything of value from hungry families, never did. The Blood have no law against murder, and a Queen cannot demand a price of men she cannot catch. Royal property went missing, even from locked and guarded estates. The Queen's Guard went armored at all times now and never traveled alone; rumor had it that Lady Ankira had been flatly forbidden by her Master of the Guard to leave her residence without at least two Guards. Taxes were one thing; courts were supported by the taxes of their Territory, and while people might grumble, they knew that those taxes earned them roads, protection, trade, education, and more. Taxes did not prompt a quiet rebellion. The rumors coming out of Prieje's capital city, Apre, rumors about Ankira's capricious demands and perverse appetites, did.

Given how distinctive Saya and Dark Luc looked, it should have been easy for Ankira's guards to catch them. It should have been nothing more than the work of a few days, perhaps a couple of weeks, to bring them before the Queen's justice. But, as Ankira had discovered, two men could disappear fairly easily into a Territory that didn't want them found. Saya and Luc had been drawn into the rebellion as the rumors about Ankira spread beyond Prieje's borders. They fought when necessary, but more often they acted as guards for more ... discreet missions, and they frequently ran supplies to the covert bases from which the rebellion acted. Luc's Red Jewel and the strength and aggression characteristic of Saya's caste made them capable of enacting missions and trips safely on their own, where other pairs might need to travel in a larger group.

"Figure we'll make Dhemlan tomorrow, mebbe the next day," Saya remarked, weighing distance against time in his head.

Luc nodded. "Sounds about right. A day or so to track down Carey's contact, rent a coach, we should be back with the others within three days."

"Means two more nights on our own." Saya's tone gave away nothing of his inner thoughts.

"That it does." Luc's voice was as carefully blank as the parchment he carried in his satchel.

Sideways glances met and lingered until Saya stood and stretched, rolling his neck, and held out his hand. "C'mon, man. Let's make it count."

Luc took his hand and stood.

 


	12. Chapter 12

 Orischaen was hiding in the woods while Roueneil counted. No matter how many times Mellissa watched this happen, she couldn't quite wrap her mind around a five foot long, four hundred pound solid white cat disappearing into dense green overgrowth. She had thought a sight shield was involved at first, but both cat and daughter had informed her that shields were cheating. Given that, and her complete inability to spot so much as a single white hair, she had given up on trying to understand this game. The cat was magic and her daughter was Witch, and that was just about all she was willing to hold in her mind at once.

This day, though, Roueneil hadn't yet reached the end of her count when clear footsteps rang out. Yaenno was near fairly major roads and paths, and travelers weren't unheard of, but Orischaen's head reappeared from a clump of leaves (nowhere near where Mellissa had lost sight of him) all the same. _Guard?_ came the psychic inquiry. _Watch? There are two males I do not know, wearing dark Jewels._

Mellissa's heart sped up, not to the point of panic but definitely faster than it had been only a moment ago. She rose from her seat and walked quickly over to Roueneil, who was turning toward her. "Orischaen says stay with you," her daughter said. Mellissa nodded and turned them both toward the temple, intending to send her inside.

"Hallo, mistress!" came the cheery call from the road. Mentally cursing, Mellissa abandoned her attempt to hide Roueneil and headed toward the travelers, who were now standing still, apparently unaware of the deadly feline crouched in the woods only a few yards away. "Do you serve at the temple? We wondered if we might beg a drink or buy some food for the road." Temples to the Darkness served travelers in several ways, including offering at least the basics of hospitality to those who needed them.

"I do not serve here, sirs, but my sister does. If you'd care to come with me, I'll see you conveyed inside and drinks drawn for you. I'm unsure of how much food is available, but she tends the kitchen as well and will be able to tell you herself."

"Our thanks." The dark man flashed a bright smile, while his burly companion nodded. They followed Mellissa, and her heartrate began to slow. Travelers happened, and it was no catastrophe, and there was no need to panic–

"Hallo, little bird," the dark man said, surprised. "Aren't you a pretty thing?"

Mellissa followed his gaze. _No, no, please,_ she thought, already knowing what had caught his eye. She was surprised to note, though, that Roueneil no longer looked like a young girl. Looking at her as the stranger did, she saw a girl becoming a young woman, past her first moontime, perhaps beginning to think about the Offering to the Darkness. _How has she gotten so old without me realizing?_

Roueneil stood stock-still near the temple doors, watching their approach. At the man's words, she had tilted her head but had not responded.

He studied her for a moment, then asked Mellissa, "Can she speak? I sought not to offend her, if she cannot; only she surprised me, being so young and not in the robes of an initiate."

"She can speak, yes," Mellissa answered slowly, searching for words that might damp this man's curiosity, "and she is my daughter, not a ward or initiate of the temple."

“Ahhh,” he nodded, “then please understand that I meant no offense. She is lovely, and I admire loveliness.” Behind him, the other man snorted as if stifling laughter. The dark man cut a sideways glare at him. “Please, let us introduce ourselves, that I might set to rest any unease I may have caused you.” He bowed with a flourish of his short red cape. “My name is Luc, and my partner here is called Saya. Would you share your name with us as well? I see by your pendant that you and I are siblings of a sort.” With one finger, he drew forward the chain which held his Jewel so that his own Hourglass pendant was visible.

Mellissa drew in a short breath. It was not unheard of for a male to be trained by the Hourglass, but it was rare to find one who had the requisite temperament and abilities. Being trained as a Black Widow instilled women with an almost unshakeable sense of self. In order to manage the visions, skirt the edge of madness, and regulate her own body's poisons (in the snake-tooth of those born Black Widows), a witch had to learn to identify her own needs and insist on them being met. There was no workaround, no shortcut for those who flinched from that kind of inner knowledge and subsequent assertiveness. Men who wanted to be trained as Black Widows had to be able and willing to work with and yield to strong women. They also had to have some natural gifts in psychic vision and subtle uses of Craft, many of which, for whatever reason, were more common among women. That Hourglass pendant warned that the man who wore it was more than he appeared, no matter how impressive (or not) he might appear. Always, there would be something more.

Flustered and striving to hide it, she found her tongue. “My name is Mellissa.” She beckoned to the girl beside the doors. “And this is my daughter, Roueneil.”

Roueneil smiled easily at both men and swept the old-fashioned curtsy her mother and aunt had seen only a few times before. Neither knew where she had learned it. “Well met,” she said.

Luc bowed to her as well, though less formally. As he straightened, Saya grabbed his bicep, gripping tight enough to hurt. "What is it," he hissed to his partner and jerked his arm, pointlessly, against that iron grip. Mellissa registered the larger man's caste for the first time and began to draw back, rapidly becoming truly afraid. Warlord Princes were a law unto themselves, and for this one to so manhandle even a friend as he was doing currently…

Saya shook him absently, enough to shush him. "Young lady," he rumbled to Roueneil, "I believe there is more to you than your mother is saying. And I believe I knew your father."


	13. Chapter 13

 Everyone settled inside around one end of the long trestle table. Mellissa had found Devara and prevailed on her to find drinks and a plate of bread and cheese for them all before the inevitable conversation began. Roueneil had sat down, then stood up, walked to the door, opened it, drifted back near the table, wandered over to the window, and sat down again. Luc had raised his eyebrows, Saya had watched her intently, and Mellissa had mentally sighed and moved the mugs so that the upcoming shock wouldn't result in any of them being accidentally destroyed. Devara joined them with a mug of her own.

"Alright," Mellissa began, inclining her head toward Saya. "You say you knew her father?"

The Warlord Prince slowly nodded. "If her father is Prince Jastrom, a guard'n escort for the Hourglass who en't given to staying too long in one place, then aye, I've known him. Grew up with him, point of fact."

Mellissa answered quietly, “That's him. He was never one to settle down. He even told me there was no need to confirm paternal rights, since he didn't know if he would ever meet his daughter.”

Saya snorted a chuckle. “Aye, sounds like him. D'ye stay in touch at all?”

She shook her head while Devara looked wistful. “I wouldn't know how to get in touch with him at this point, other than through the Hourglass.”

“I could.” Roueneil's quiet comment drew everyone's gaze.

“What?” Luc said. _Really, brain? That's the best you could come up with?_

“I could find him. Or well, I guess not me, but Orischaen could.”

Devara covered her eyes while Mellissa pressed her fingers to her lips. Saya and Luc exchanged glances, debating whether asking would be horribly rude. Luc caved first. “Who is Orischaen, young mistress?”

 _I am Orischaen,_ came the psychic reply. All eyes turned toward the door Roueneil had left open. A hulking feline shape crouched in it, tail lashing, amber eyes gleaming. Luc shouted and leapt up from his seat, nimble with shock, and nearly upset every cup on the table in the process. Mellissa granted herself a moment of smugness at her foresight, which his partner irrevocably shattered. Saya moved just as fast, but not to escape -- the Warlord Prince slid out of his seat and into a fighting stance as easily as he might have inhaled. The fur along Orischaen's back bristled upright, and the threat of violence thickened the air.

"No!" Roueneil wailed and flung herself between men and cat. "You are not supposed to be like that! It was supposed to be a surprise; stop hissy-growling at each other!"

As soon as she interrupted his line of sight, Saya relaxed noticeably. Luc considered the situation warily and opted to remain where he was, on the far side of the table. Mellissa and Devara stopped midway through their own defensive preparations. As she let go the threads she had just begun to wind around her fingers, Mellissa made a mental note to ask her sister what she had been planning to do with the power she had summoned in that moment of panic.

Roueneil knelt beside Orischaen as he rose up from his couch, his head level with hers. She rubbed his ears and murmured to him too quietly for those at the table to make out her words. Luc kept a few cautious steps back from the others. At last, she stood, and Orischaen followed her back to the table and sat beside her feet.

"This is Prince Orischaen, and I have bad manners not to have introduced him properly, and it is my fault you were frightened so you must not be angry with him." Roueneil met Saya's eyes gravely. “Please do not be angry with him.”

Slowly, Saya nodded and sank back into his seat. Once sure he was settled comfortably and with weapons ready to hand, he gestured Luc back to the table. The other man moved reluctantly, but he came, and he resumed the conversation. “So, girl, you think yer tiger here could find yer father?”

“He is not my tiger. He is my friend.”

Devara interrupted, “Prince Orischaen is an Arcerian cat. I thought Prince Saya might have recognized him.”

Saya shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands. “I thought, mebbe he looked like one. Never seen one of the big cats m'self. Mostly private, they are.”

 _We do not see much point in venturing out of our own lands. Most two-legged folk are not worth the time it would take to hunt them down and eat them._ Judging by the men's winces, Mellissa assumed everyone had been allowed to hear that remark.

“Orischaen is my friend, and he could follow my smell to my father.” Roueneil abruptly looked very small and very unsure. “I just meant, if someone needed to find him. Not that I need him myself, or anything. Just, you mentioned it, and I'm pretty sure we could, and--”

Mellissa patted her knee to stem the flow of words. “It's good to know, Rou. Thank you for telling us.” She turned back to Saya and Luc. “You had said that you are traveling. Is it your intention to be moving on your way soon, or did you plan to pass the night here?”

Before they could answer, Devara added, “Don't think we're running you off. You're welcome to stay, but it's nearing time I started cooking dinner, and I need to know if we're to have two extra mouths tonight.”

 _We made good time today,_ Saya sent to Luc. _There's no particular need to press on, if you want to sleep in guest bunks here rather than wherever we would camp otherwise._

 _You know how I feel about beds instead of plant life. Besides,_ Luc hesitated, searching for a diplomatic way to broach the topic, _you said more than just that you know her father. You see something in this girl, don't you?_

 _Aye, I do. Look at her eyes, if you can manage. And try and read her – not with your Jewel, or any road not_ just _with your Jewel. Try the Hourglass's Craft as well. Something about her reminds me of deep water._

“We'd be glad to pass the night here, if it would be no burden, and we will happily pay the temple the cost of our meals and beds.” Luc directed his answer to Devara but kept Roueneil in his peripheral vision. When she looked up at the older woman – her aunt, he reminded himself – he saw the first bit of what Saya might have meant. Her eyes looked dark, surprisingly so for a child of either Dhemlan or Glacia, but when light fell on them the color brightened to royal blue or the rich indigo of sunset, and the color seemed fathomless, deep enough to drown in. Watching her, his mind drifted to the sense of sunlight seen from underwater and the ringing echoes in mountainous crevasses or caves. With a start, he realized she had turned from her aunt and met his eyes full-on with her own – and that her mother had at least begun the Black Widow training she would clearly need. A tentative weaving of three or four psychic threads bridged their minds, and he was feeling the edges of her sense of self, what some called the aura or soul. The edges of her eyes reflected light like a cat's, gleaming for an instant, and then she blinked, slow and deliberate, and closed him out.

Luc came back to himself with a start. Saya radiated concern, thrumming like a too-tight bowstring, but no one else seemed to have noticed anything out of the ordinary – or at least they had chosen not to show it if they did.

Anyone other than the Arcerian cat, anyway. Orischaen was staring fixedly at him in a way reminiscent of smaller cats and very small rodents. Luc tilted his head slightly, not looking away, and caught the mental sensation of a lip raised over teeth, something in it of both the snarl and the smile. Minding his manners, he smiled back very politely, letting a little of his own teeth show. The cat's eyes slid half-closed, and he lay down under Roueneil's chair. If he seemed a tad grumbly and reluctant, no one commented on it.

 


	14. Chapter 14

It was after dinner before he and Saya had any time alone to discuss the unexpected events of the day. They had traveled well during the morning, eaten lunch beside a river, and followed the road into the afternoon. They had hoped to find provisions at the temple to make the night's camp-out more comfortable; neither of them could have predicted what they found instead. Hell's fire, Luc thought ruefully, he still wasn't even sure what they _had_ found; he certainly wouldn't have known it was an option for a prediction.

“Whadd'you think o' things here?” Saya asked, right on cue.

“The girl is something else entirely. And that cat – there has to be a better word for something that big – is outright terrifying. What do you think of her?”

Saya made a ruminating noise deep in his chest. “Something in her feels like the cat: wild and a little dangerous, mebbe even without realizing it. Her face – cheekbones, nose, dimples – she looks like Jastrom. Fer a minute there, it was like seeing him again, here in the wrong place. You?”

For a moment, Luc found himself at a loss for words to explain the sensations he'd felt when he met her eyes. “Her eyes are a strange color for where we are. I've never seen eyes that dark in Glacia.” He let the last word rise in a question; Saya was undeniably the expert in his birth Territory, while Luc was still learning new and interesting and likely-to-eat-him things, like the fact that apparently gigantic man-sized catbeasts lived there, too.

Saya shook his head. “Glacian eyes are light, they go with the hair. Dhemlan eyes are shades of gold. Hers are the night sky.”

Luc stared at him in open surprise. “That was remarkably poetic, coming from you.”

Saya glared at him. “What'd you call 'em, then?”

“Purple. Blue. Indigo. Spilled ink. Twilight.” Luc frowned, then shrugged. “The night sky. It's the perfect description. That doesn't make it not poetic, which means, from you, strange. Is she turning your head about in some way? She's a natural Black Widow, though I doubt she's started any of the serious training yet. She started laying the groundwork for a psychic bridge between our minds, but she made it light enough to fade away almost immediately.” Aware he was chattering, he pressed his lips closed and looked to his partner.

Saya sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, looking down at his hands dangling between his legs. “She wears a darker Jewel'n me, Luc, but I swear there's more to it than that. I never felt somethin' so imbued wi' the Darkness. I think …” He looked up at the other man. “I think you need t' weave a tangled web tonight, before we leave. We need to know about this girl. Somethin' tells me she matters. A prouder man than I might call it the Darkness telling him that.”

Luc drew in a shaky breath and nodded. Only twice before had Saya had these impulses and asked him to weave immediately. Once, there had been an avalanche coming, and they had gotten enough warning to get to safety instead of being crushed to bits beneath tons of snow and ice. The second time, they had been making contact with a rebel cell in another city. One of the members had been captured and compromised. His web had shown them where to go, and they had gotten her out and to a House of Healing where her wounds, physical and psychic, stood some chance of being properly tended to. Considering the scope of those disasters threatened to make him too nervous to properly channel the visions he would need to handle, so he set them aside.

… Two minutes later he gritted his teeth and _shoved_ them aside. Working with spidersilk on the edge of the Twisted Kingdom with an agitated mind was a deadly certain way to lose one's mind entirely, and he had no intention of driving himself mad trying to find probably-but-not-certainly essential information for them.

Saya squeezed both his shoulders. “I'll kip in the other room so you can set up in here. Be cautious, and wake me when you can talk about it.”

Luc only nodded, relishing the warmth of his hands for the moment before Saya released him. Once he had the door shut and locked, he opened his pack and extracted the smaller case he always traveled with and rarely opened. Its wooden lid shone polished and warm in the lamplight with the Hourglass's sigil burned into it in stark black lines. Inside it were vials of various oils, spools of various silks, and a collapsed frame on which to weave a tangled web. No fully trained Black Widow would be caught traveling without one.

The frame took up the top of the small desk beside his bed. The medium-grade silk yielded better control while still being useful in a small enough space. He pulled out the spindle and two vials: one of sunflower oil, for clear sight, and another of poppy oil, for allowing the Darkness to speak clearly. Carefully and deliberately, he soaked the ends of his fingers in the sunflower oil, then began to unwind the spidersilk, running it through his fingers before winding it onto an empty spindle. Next, he dripped the poppy oil across his fingers and repeated the process in reverse. _Deep breaths_ , he reminded himself, as his teachers in the Hourglass had taught. Creating a blank and open mind was the only reliable way to receive the kind of vision from the Darkness that a tangled web solicited, and remaining centered in oneself was vital to surviving the process with one's mind intact.

Luc tied one thread to the lower left corner of the frame, took a deep breath, and sank into the abyss. Weaving a tangled web meant letting the Darkness guide his fingers – he didn't weave often because he disliked giving up that amount of control. But Saya had never been wrong. Patiently, he set aside thoughts of his steadfast partner and let his conscious mind sink under the Darkness's control.

 

The moon had risen and set when Luc came back to himself. His wrists ached, and his fingers shook with cramps and tremors. He stood, carefully not looking at the web yet, and stretched. His back popped twice, and he sighed with relief. No part of hunching over a desk, holding threads taut with three fingers while tying knots with a fourth and fifth, was any kind of comfortable. He rolled his neck once more and returned to the web. _This part is always so difficult, returning to something I don't remember weaving, looking for shapes in it I didn't know I was making._ Knots dripped from the web's cramped spaces. Luc fought down the urge to look for distinct images, as he did every time, and let his eyes relax. As the Darkness had spoken through his fingers, it would now speak through his eyes.

A rose unfurled, nearly full-blown. A butterfly hovered behind it; the rose appeared to have wings. A crown surmounted a withered tree, with dead limbs and points going in all directions. At the base of the tree, where the rose pointed, a small flame had been sparked. Along the base of the web ran a river, complete with ripples and curls. Luc stared at it, goosebumps breaking out along his arms and the back of his neck. There were words written in the water. _I've never seen anything this blatant before. I've never -- I didn't even know this was a thing that could happen._ There, between the edges of the gently curving river, were seven letters, perfectly clear: TELL HER.

He stared for the space of three breaths, three deep, careful breaths. In, and out. In, and out. In, and out. Then he stripped the web off its frame, dropped it on a plate, and lit it with a tongue of witchfire. Once it was nothing but ash, he left the room to find Saya.

Saya's door was unlocked, which was mildly but not hugely surprising. The surprise was inside the room. Luc opened the door and threw his arm in front of his eyes to dim the radiance. Saya sat cross-legged on the bed, hands on his knees, eyes closed. His Jewels shone so brightly the room seemed to contain a small sun of its own. The Summer-sky spilled through the room, losing its color further away from the bed. The Opal, though, had filled the room wall to wall; the light blue faded only because it was subsumed by the blazing white and hints of prismatic rainbows Saya's Opal ring and necklace emitted.

"Saya," Luc hissed, shutting the door before the light from within could wake other residents or guests of the temple. He was well and truly frightened. Saya rarely sank this deep into meditation – because that was where the light came from, when the Warlord Prince had utterly given himself over to the Darkness, to hear what it might need him to know. For him to have done so now, tonight, after making his request of Luc, told Luc exactly how worried, even afraid, he must be. "Saya, come back to me, we need to talk in a serious way."

The bigger man stirred, shifting his weigh slightly. The light began to fade, shrinking back into Saya's Jewels. Luc sat in the room's only chair, then got up and paced. Sitting down was not going to adequately express his impatience or steadily building anxiety. Saya unfolded one leg, then the other, then eased himself up off the bed and stretched, bending from side to side. “What'd you see?” he asked.

Luc sighed and shook his head. “I saw words. I've never seen words before. And I saw something wonderful and rare taking shape, something that will lead to a transformation by destroying the old, useless, dead material. I saw change and growth and sovereignty.”

Saya waited patiently until he stopped talking, then asked, “What words?”

“What?”

“You said you saw words. What words?”

Luc hesitated. “Tell her.”

“What?”

“That's what it said. 'Tell her.'”

“I know that's what it said, weaver; I'm not completely stupid. Tell who what?”

Luc hesitated again. _Putting words to these things is always so difficult; it pins them down in a way they aren't before that._ “I think it means the girl, Roueneil. And I think … I think it means, 'tell her everything.'”

Saya raised his eyebrows and didn't speak, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Everything, hm? Ankira, people dying, those twisted horrors, Caelen, all of it? We oughta dump all that on her? On a little girl en't even old enough to've made the Offering yet?”

Luc shrugged helplessly and spread his hands. “You asked me to weave, and I did. You asked what I saw, and I've told you. And I'll tell you this as well, you hulking barbarian: I think you're right. I think she's more than meets the eye, by a lot. I think she's Witch.”

Saya came to his feet with a surge and lunged for the smaller man. Luc wound up backed against the wall with Saya's hands pressed on either side of his head. “Y'think she's Witch? Sure yer not just twisted up over a pretty girl and weaving that always messes with yer head? Be very sure, my own heart, afore we go ruining some nice young girl's life and piss off her Black Widow mother and auntie.” His voice was low and tight; his breath was warm against Luc's lips. “Hearth witches know how to poison folk just as easily as yer Hourglass training teaches, y'know.”

"Well I don't know about 'just as easily,' but yes, I'm aware that poisons are not the exclusive purview of Black Widows. Saya, let me sit down, please." The other man stepped silently away, jaw clenched. Luc settled himself in the armchair. "I think she's Witch. The web showed her, and it showed her as something amazing, something rare and worth cherishing because it appears so infrequently. I don't know how else to interpret both what a treasure she appears to be and also the amount of power she held in my web."

"She wears a dark Jewel, but it's only the Sapphire," Saya commented. "You outrank her right now; y'might still outrank her after her Offering. You know dark Birthrights don't tend to descend as far."

Luc inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Witch isn't required to wear any particular Jewel. The myths are just that she is born of the Darkness, that our dreams are shaped and molded in the abyss and born into flesh as Witch. She could wear any Jewels, be any caste–”

"I'd noticed as she en't a Queen. Witch has been a Queen more often than not."

"More often than not is not always."

"No it's not." Saya paced a few tight steps across the room, then wheeled back. "Alright then. You've talked me into it. Never doubted one o'your webs til now, don't seem like a good time to start. In the morning, afore we head out, we'll see if we can talk to the girl. But it's going to be on you, friend, to figure out what to tell her mama and auntie as'll make them not skin us both alive where we stand."

Luc headed for the door and his own room – and, his aching hands reminded him, his own blissful bed for glorious rest – and nodded on the way. "I'll come up with something brilliant, as usual. Sleep well."

Saya reached out and caught his hand on the way out. Luc glanced down curiously as the Warlord Prince parted his lips, then pressed them tightly together. At last he said simply, "Stay." Luc was nodding before the word was even out.


	15. Chapter 15

The next morning dawned bright and sunny, almost aggressively cheerful. Birds sang outside the windows. Fluffy clouds scudded across the warm blue sky. Luc hid his head under his pillow and groaned. He hauled himself out of bed, splashed water on his face, and trudged down the stairs. Saya, Mellissa, and Devara were nowhere to be seen, though one of the other Priestesses caught Luc's eye and waved him toward the kitchen. Through the kitchen door, he found a warm hearth and a comfortable table, around which sat Saya, Mellissa, and Devara.

"Welcome," Devara said as she stood to fetch him a plate and mug.

"You really don't need to– I can get that on my own–" Luc protested.

Mellissa gestured him over, smiling. "How many hearth witches have you know? She'll never let you serve your own food while she's around. Most people assume it's because hearth witches have some deep-seated need to take care of others, but a lot of it is actually that she's convinced you'll somehow do it wrong."

Luc stifled an unexpected laugh. "Spill the eggs on the floor, perhaps?"

"Or shatter her good crockery, doubtless." A grape smacked into the side of her head. "OW! Hey! Don't think I didn't see that!"

Devara handed Luc his plate with a smile that made him wonder about the safety of the food he'd just been given. As if she could sense his thoughts, her grin grew wider. Luc weighed the relative dangers of food poisoning versus refusing to eat something presented directly to him by the hearth witch who had prepared it, sat down, and began to eat. Devara patted him firmly on the shoulder on the way back to her seat. He had to stifle a moan as the eggs nearly melted on his tongue in a rush of flavor. “Ths ss rrrry ngud,” he mumbled around his mouthful.

“Thank you,” Devara replied primly. “Since you're up now, would you or your friend care to tell us what you plan to do from here?”

“We'd like to tell you just that, aye,” came Saya's rumble. “My partner and I're traveling fer supplies t' take back t' Prieje.”

Mellissa raised her eyebrows at that. “Has something happened in Prieje that we've not heard about, that you need to travel so far just to make purchases?”

_ This's your part _ , Saya sent on a private thread to Luc.  _ Convince 'em _ .

Luc sighed and swallowed the last delicious bite of his eggs. “We cannot be seen buying supplies in Prieje because Lady Ankira would like nothing more than to have us both arrested, tortured, and likely eventually executed.”

Shocked silence. “ _ Why? _ ” Devara gasped. 

Saya shrugged. Luc grinned tightly. “We disagree with the way she chooses to manage – or not – her Territory. Occasionally, we disagree with considerable force.”

“You're rebels,” Mellissa said tightly. “You're rebels against a lawfully empowered Queen who has every right to her position.”

Luc nodded amiably, hoping the tension suddenly evident in Saya's shoulders wouldn't get them both into even more trouble. “We're rebels against the lawfully empowered Queen of Prieje who assumed her position through right of power and the agreement of the lesser Queens of her Territory, yes.”

“Why would you tell us this?” Devara asked as Mellissa clenched her hands together tightly enough for her knuckles to turn white. “We could turn you in, summon her Guard.”

Saya shook his head, the beads in his hair clinking softly against each other. “When's Dhemlan ever cared 'bout Prieje?” he asked with a trace of bitterness.

“Besides,” Luc interjected, “not to put too fine a point on it, but neither of you could hold us here against our will.” A slight effort lit his Red Jewels for a moment, reminding the women of the power he could command. Mellissa paled. “That's not a threat, by the way. I have no intention of harming either of you. I just want to prevent any unpleasantness. Unpleasantness sometimes brings accidental injuries and almost always ruins our travel schedule, and we do actually have an appointment to make today.”

“Then why tell us at all?” Devara repeated her question, frustration leaking into her voice. “Why not just go on your way? Did you just derive some kind of satisfaction from us knowing that we fed and sheltered rebels, that we're in some way distantly related to  _ rebels _ ?”

Luc held out his hand beseechingly.  _ Mother Night, how to explain this in a way that she'll believe and not completely lose it over. _ “Last night, Saya had a strong feeling that something more – hmm, no, hang on.” He drew a deep breath. “Last night, Saya asked me to weave a tangled web. He thought we would need the extra guidance – I don't question these feelings when he gets them. Call them instinct, call them promptings of the Darkness; I don't know. I just know they're right. So I wove a tangled web of dreams and visions, and it instructed us, in no unclear terms, to tell … you … the truth about where we came from and what we're doing.”

“Tell  _ us _ ?” Mellissa asked, quick ears catching his hesitation.  _ Hell fire, _ Luc swore mentally, schooling his face to blankness. “Tell us, or tell someone else?”

Abruptly, Saya took over the conversation. “Th'web told us to tell yer daughter. Alright? I thought you'd rather us talk to you first, instead of telling these kinds of things t'yer girl, but mebbe I was wrong and you want us t' talk with her.” He leaned forward, bracing his elbows against the table. “One way or t'other, we en't going to ignore what Luc's web told us. We asked the Darkness for an answer and got it. Only idiots and fools'd ignore what they'd asked for.”

Mellissa opened her mouth to respond hotly, but Devara laid a hand on her arm. “Let me think a moment, please. This is a lot to take in.” Mellissa subsided, and the men waited.

Moments crawled past. Devara closed her eyes and steepled her fingers in front of her mouth. Mellissa shifted as if she wanted to interject, looked at her sister, and subsided. At last Devara spoke – to Mellissa, not to Saya or Luc.

“Have you ever ignored one of your tangled webs?”

Mellissa shook her head mutely.

“What would happen if you did?” Luc started to answer, but she gestured for him to be quiet and waited for Mellissa's answer.

Mellissa flipped the ends of her hair up to suck between her lips as she pondered. “The Hourglass teaches us not to ask questions to which we don't answers. If you put in the time and effort of weaving, it doesn't make a lot of sense to ignore the results, answers, or feedback. I don't know that there are any particular specific consequences with which we were ever threatened. It's just the usual consequences for finding the truth and then deliberately ignoring it. Which tend not to be positive.” She smiled shakily.

Luc nodded, though he waited for Devara's acknowledgment before he spoke. “Thus was I also taught, Priestess. It is foolish – pointlessly foolish – to ask a question and then throw out the answer because you don't like it. It risks insulting the Darkness and making a mockery of the skills you've learned.”

“So you wish to tell my niece that you two, men with whom she is as comfortable as she is with anyone, the first people to have brought her any information about her father, are rebelling against the Queen of a neighboring Territory … why?” Devara's hand chopped the air impatiently. “Not the web, I know that – I mean what do you think you will gain from this? What do you see happening as a result? Even if you were told only to tell Roueneil this information, I think you are both capable of making solid predictions about the outcome. So what. Do you want. With my niece.

Luc grimaced.  _ She has every right to ask, _ Saya sent. Y _ ou'd ask too, in her position. Not that we'll ever _ \-- his partner's contact with his mind cut off. 

"I don't honestly know what will happen. No, look," he headed off Devara's impatient gesture, "I know that sounds like extreme evasion. But unless your niece is secretly combat-trained and capable of fighting her way through the entire guard to cut off Ankira's thrice-damned head, I frankly don't know what use to us she could be. The web said to tell her who we are and what we're doing, and it said-- well, it suggested anyway, that she is something wholly unique and precious. That she's," he lowered his voice, "Witch."

Mellissa jumped. Devara blanched. Luc took those as affirmatives. "Dreams made flesh, the living myth born into our world, during our lifetimes -- these are wondrous times we live in. I don't want to hurt Roueneil; I don't want a single bad thing to happen to her. She's magic incarnate! Damaging her would be like ... like taking a priceless work of art and burning it, or tracking down the only living member of a new species and killing and stuffing it." Mellissa whimpered.  _ Hell's fire, that might not have been the best choice of analogies ever. _ "I don't know what good telling her could do, or if there's anything she could do to help us, or if she would even want to -- or if you would let her," with a quick half-bow from his seat. "I just know that we're supposed to tell her."

"Tell me what," came Roueneil's clear voice from the doorway. Every adult in the room jumped. _I suppose we could have looked more guilty, but I'm not sure how_ , Luc thought ruefully.

Mellissa walked over to her daughter and took her hands. "Roueneil," her voice shook. Roueneil's shoulders tightened. "Rou, Prince Saya and Luc have something to tell you. And ... and I just want you to listen to them, but you don't have to do anything other than hear them out, okay?"

Roueneil nodded, edging past her mother cautiously to perch at the end of the table and nibble one of Devara's blueberry muffins.

Saya tilted his head toward Luc, who began. "Roueneil, Saya and I live in Prieje, and ... Prieje is ruled by a Queen named Ankira--"

"Mama and Auntie Devara say that I am to call Queens 'Lady' and avoid using their names whenever possible."

He forced out a smile, aware that it probably looked rather sickly. "And they are quite right to say so. I beg your pardon. Lady Ankira rules Prieje, and she is ... well, she is a bad Queen. And so--"

Roueneil tilted her head and regarded him curiously. "What makes someone a bad Queen?"

"Ahhh..." he looked to Saya for help.

_ I shouldn't bail y'out like this, seeing as it's your fault we're down here talking about this anyway. _

_ You told me to weave. This is your fault as much as mine. _

"A bad Queen is one who abuses her people, little bird." Roueneil's gaze whipped over to Saya, who chose his words carefully and slowly, sharpening his enunciation and fighting past his normally thick accent. "A bad Queen does not take care of those she rules. She puts her own desires first. She taxes them and demands their aid to satisfy what she wants, get whatever pretty things she desires, and claims whatever catches her fancy. She lies to them, and when people protest, she uses force to make them question what they have been through. And then she punishes them for saying what she doesn't want to hear. Soon, everyone is afraid not to agree with her, because the fits and punishments are too much to bear."

"She uses people for her own amusement," Luc added quietly. "It comes down to that. Instead of using her power to give other people more opportunities and more choices, she takes away their choices and makes them do what will entertain her the most." He drew a deep breath. “And because this is how she treats her people, because she hurts them instead of helping them, we are … not being good subjects. We are doing our best to help people who oppose her and to oppose her ourselves.”

“That means sometimes we hurt people,” Saya added, pressing his palms flat against the table. “Sometimes we do things we would not do under other circumstances, like lie or steal or damage things that belong to other people.”

“If she is that bad, why don't other people stop her? Who is still letting her be Queen?”

“A Territory Queen answers to no other authority,” Luc began.

“Roueneil, you remember, we've talked about this,” Mellissa cut in. “Territory Queens don't have anyone who can tell them what to do, unless there's a Queen ruling in Ebon Askavi. And there isn't one right now, so within a Territory, that Queen's word is law.”

“But,” Roueneil's forehead creased, “but they said she is hurting people. And that is bad. If you break your nice things you cannot have new ones; you must sit with the broken ones and think about what you've done and apologize.” She stood and headed toward the door. “I will go and tell Lady Ankira that she must sit with her broken things until she wishes to apologize, and you will all choose a new Queen who will play gently with her nice things and not be bad and hurt people.”

“No!” “Wait!” “No!” All four adults bolted upright, though Saya and Luc checked themselves and sat back down as Mellissa and Devara caught Roueneil's hands and brought her back to the table. Her eyes bore their usual haze of confusion, and her brows were creased together, but she followed them compliantly enough and sat down to hear their objections. Her air suggested the resignation of someone used to being told she is doing something wrong but still unsure of what behavior she should change in order to fix that.

“Roueneil, listen,” Mellissa began, holding her daughter's hands firmly on the table. “You can't just go to Lady Ankira and tell her she's a bad Queen.”

“Why not?”

_ Does she seem at all … odd to you? _ Luc sent to Saya.  _ I know she's different, but she seems more than just naïve. Is she … is there something wrong with her? _

_ Not sure. She seems a mite distracted, even now, and I'm not sure she understood what we were saying. _

_She isn't terribly much younger than she looks or something, is she? I thought she understood what was happening, but she just took off like she planned to scold Ankira into playing nicely from now on._

All Saya sent back was a mental shrug and a sense of vague discomfort.

“Lady Ankira – all Queens – would not like to be told she is a bad Queen. Queens do not handle challenges to their authority very well at all.”

“I do not like it when you tell me I have done something bad, but you tell me anyway so that I can not do the bad thing again. You told me this is what parents have to do so that their children will grow up wise and good. Does Lady Ankira not have parents? Who should tell her that she has done something bad?”

Devara pinched the bridge of her nose. “Honey, hear me good for just a minute. If you left this room to go fuss at Ankira, you would have to ride the Winds to Prieje even though you've never been there. You would have to find the capital--”

“Apre,” Luc added quietly. He flashed an extra-charming smile in response to Devara's glare.

“--and then talk your way into her Court or residence. That would be hard, because she has an entire Guard plus an entire Court, and their jobs are to do what she wants. So they wouldn't let you in, and they might hurt you to keep you from upsetting her.”

“Why would they do what she wants when she is not a good Queen?”

Her aunt bit her lower lip in thought. “Some of them are afraid of her. She wears Jewels, too, just like the rest of the Blood. Because she is the Queen, many of them will feel like they have to obey her – and because some people obey her, others will find it easier to just go along instead of challenging her authority. She can punish them, or order those who serve her to do so. And some of them, some of the men who serve her, will feel a bond to her as a Queen that's almost impossible for them to walk away from. Those men will be practically prisoners, and even though they might not want to do anything bad on their own, if she asks them to, they'll do pretty much anything she wants.”

Roueneil considered this in silence for a moment. “Who is the Queen of Ebon Askavi?”

“What?” Mellissa's voice held shock and a hint of fear

“You said if there were a Queen in Ebon Askavi, she could tell a Territory Queen what to do and when she has been bad. We need to find the Queen of Ebon Askavi, then. Who is she?”

“Sweetheart, there is no Queen of Ebon Askavi right now. There isn't always a Queen of the Black Mountain.”

“Oh.” She subsided. “Why not?”

_ We are wandering wildly far afield, _ Devara sent on a psychic thread to Mellissa. 

_ What else can I do but answer her? _ came the quick response. “Ebon Askavi is only ruled by a very special Queen, and sometimes years or even centuries pass by without a Queen who is the right kind of special. So right now, there is no one who has the authority to remove Lady Ankira, and the very fact that she rules gives her a great deal of authority and earns her a great deal of obedience from those who live in Prieje.”

“We don't even know that she's that bad a Queen,” Devara added.

Saya growled, a low rumble emanating from deep in his chest. Luc's chin jutted forward. “You have no idea what a bad Queen even is, safe and spoiled here in pretty Dhemlan with your centuries to just outwait your neighbors' troubles--” Saya's hand clamped around his bicep, and he forced his mouth shut, quashing the angry words that stung behind his lips.

“We are not  _ spoiled _ ,” Devara bit out. “And if we are  _ safe _ , it is because we make ourselves so. We have had bad Queens here, spoiled, abusive Queens whose pleasure it was to twist and break those around them into new and more amusing shapes. But we have long memories, and we have fought to keep such pollution away from Dhemlan's thrones.” A soft thunder rolled through the room on the tails of her words, and the light dimmed for the space of a few heartbeats. In the sudden shadows, Roueneil's eyes gleamed like back-lit glass. Luc caught the light from the corner of his eye, but when he turned back to her, the sunlight shining through the windows was restored and her unruffled gaze was the same fathomless dark as usual.

Saya spread his hands. “Ladies. Harsh words here. No offense meant. M'partner got frustrated and hurt, he got mean. Y'don't believe us, a'cos we're strangers to you, and that's right and fine. But we en't lied to you yet, and we en't planning to.” He turned to Roueneil, addressing her directly. “Little bird, we –  _ I _ have seen with m'own two eyes the damage Lady Ankira has done t' people she's s'posed to protect and care for. Th'only way I know to make her stop hurting people is t'throw her out, take away her throne and power by force. So that's what I'm doing. And that's what Luc's doing with me. I don't rightly know why we needed you to know that, but last night Luc's tangled web said we did, and I don't argue with Black Widows or what the Darkness shows them.”

Roueneil nodded slowly. “Like when Mama weaves and usually what she sees is important but she can't tell me what it is?” Mellissa's expression became very long-suffering.

“Like that, yes, 'cept that this time, what Luc saw was that we had to tell you the truth about us afore we left. Dunno why.”

She tilted her head and considered them all: Saya with his thick arms crossed, Luc leaning forward on the table, Devara with her fingers steepled in front of her lips, Mellissa propping her chin on one fist. Her eyes gleamed with indigo sparks. “Maybe you were supposed to tell me because I can help make it right.”

 


	16. Chapter 16

 A white shadow slunk through the doorway to curl around her feet, rumbling contentedly. She reached down and scratched his ears. Her mama and her auntie would find their voices soon enough, and then there would be shouting, and she would have to tell them that it was okay and she was ready to be a grown-up now, at least a bit. But that was still a few minutes away, and in the meantime, Orischaen's fur had sunlight caught in it, and blackberry scent, and she was happy to feel his pelt thrumming with power under her fingers.

She looked up at Luc. _Auntie Devara will be the first one to fuss, but Mama will not take long to find her words, and they will try to braid them together like ropes to keep me here. But Luc will be a knife, and Saya will help pull me free._

"Roueneil, there's no way you can be involved in this. There's no reason for you to get involved, and there's nothing you could do anyway!"

Mama jumped in almost before Auntie Devara closed her mouth. "Really Rou, it's sweet that you want to help these men, they've been kind to us and it was nice to hear about your father, but they're talking about serious fighting and you're too young for that kind of thing, even if you were ready to be moving away from us." Her eyes glistened like tears were piling into them. "Do you want that badly to be leaving us?"

"Oh Mama, I don't want to leave you at all. I love you both," she beamed, trying to reassure them. "But I can help. And if Lady Ankira is a bad Queen, if no one can tell her not to be bad, then that means everyone should help make her not be bad anymore, right? It means I have to help, because I can."

"Why do you think you can help?" Auntie Devara asked, a frustrated edge to her voice.

Saya and Luc traded startled glances, and Orischaen's ears stood up tall like he had heard a sound just on the edge of his range.

"Mama says that when she weaves her tangled webs, she lets the Darkness move through her and it gives her pictures so she can hear its messages. And you said that when I got my Birthright Jewel, I would have a way to hear the Darkness, too, that I would carry it with me always. But I did not need a Jewel to hear the Darkness, all these years, and the _silent wings of storms and the cries of constellations waltz pointe through the abyss and tell me I can help_!"

Mellissa leapt to her feet. “Roueneil, you can't–”

“ _I can._ ” Roueneil scuffed her right foot in a perfect semicircle, shifted her weight onto her toes.

Luc grabbed the edge of the table, certain he was about to fall over. It was as if gravity had vanished, leaving him hovering weightless above a yawning abyss. _She only wears the Sapphire, I stand deeper in the abyss than she does – but may the Darkness take me if I've ever felt anything like_ this _before. No precise levels, no clear tones of the Jewels setting up a neat scale. Her power rests above me at the Sapphire, but_ she _rings out through all the abyss._

A deafening silence fell around Saya. He swallowed, then swallowed again, hoping to pop his ears. The Darkness surrounded him as it had not since he made his Offering. He had walked out the next morning wearing an Opal Jewel and carrying the memory of the Darkness enveloping him like enormous wings. From Roueneil spread ripples of the same muffling weight, the same soft-edged pinions silent as a stooping owl. He fixed his eyes on her and worked his jaw, trying to breathe.

Devara shivered. The chill bite of temper was no stranger to any member of the Blood, but this felt like more than the surface irritation that might spark anger. This felt like the cold of a winter night when the air was crisp and clear and the stars seemed close enough to touch.

Mellissa closed her eyes and basked in her daughter's presence. _I knew this day would come eventually, the day she stood on her own and let her birthright be seen. She may not even be sure yet who she is, or what she can do, and she will need us to stand with her while she finds her footing. Well, I can do that much, at least._


	17. Chapter 17

“Alright then, Rou,” Devara said wearily. _Past the point now of us being able to give her orders._ “What is it you want to do now?”

“If Saya and Luc will let me, I would like to go with them back to Prieje and find out if Lady Ankira has been dangerous to her good people and nice things. If she has, I want to help them show her that that is not how she should treat other people.”

_ I will go with her _ . Orischaen's psychic voice lacked any room for argument.  _ It is not right for a girl-kit to travel from her family's den without a guard and escort, and I will take care of her while she is away. _ When Roueneil looked like she might object, to his tone if nothing else, he continued,  _ It is important for Prince Saya and Luc to know this, Roueneil, before they agree to anything. They need to know that it will not be a matter only of a young Dhemlan Priestess who will soon become a Black Widow traveling with them, and that they will have help protecting you if that is necessary. _

Saya grunted and nodded toward the Arcerian cat. “Appreciate y'sharing that with us. Fer m'self, I say Roueneil's welcome to travel with us, and yer welcome right along with'er. Luc's choice too though.”

Luc was nodding before he had finished speaking. “I can't help but feel it was the will of the Darkness that brought us here, and frankly the situation with Ankira is too fraught for us to turn down any help, no matter how young or unusual. And, Hell's fire, maybe word will slip out that Witch herself is on our side and public opinion will swing–” He realized Mellissa was staring at him open-mouthed, and Devara had her head in her hands on the table.

Roueneil blinked night-dark eyes at him. “What does that mean? We're witches, we're Blood, you said it like it's a name.” She looked around the table, the faces of those who had raised and loved her. “You said it like it's  _ my _ name. How can it be my name if I've never heard it before?  _ Why do you know something about my name that I don't? _ ”

Devara lifted her head slowly, the lines in her face tired. “Witch is the daughter of the Darkness. She is the dreams of the Blood, heard as prayers and whispers in the Darkness itself, given flesh and born into our world. She is the brightest myth of the Blood, because she comes again and again when she is needed, always in a different form. Many times, she is the Black-Jeweled Queen of Ebon Askavi. Years ago, when my sister was pregnant, she wove a tangled web, and she saw her daughter in it. Her daughter, who would be Witch, born to walk the Realms again.”

Roueneil's eyes widened until Luc was wincing in sympathy. “You … you think you know who I am, you think I am something different from you, something not even really a person because I'm something else that keeps coming back over and over like a broken record, does that mean if I die – what happens if I die? Do you just get a new me? And you never told me any of this? Never in all these years?” Her voice cracked. Her chest heaved as she struggled to draw in deeper breaths. Orischaen reached out one large paw and flexed it, deadly claws sliding in and out of their sheaths.

_ I thought you had told her _ , his mental voice was almost too calm, too controlled.  _ I thought she simply did not wish to discuss it, preferring to live her life on her own, without those kinds of concerns. _ He paused.  _ You should have told her. _

Mellissa's eyes shone wetly. “Rou, my girl, I sought to protect you. To grow up knowing you were destined for a great purpose, it could stifle you. I wanted you to have a childhood. I wanted you to have freedom that you would not with the name of Witch hanging over your every move. People would have heard, and the requests and manipulation and power plays would have come pouring in. You would never have been safe.”

“But I would have known there was a word for this.” Her voice rose, and Orischaen stirred nervously. “I would have known there was a reason for the colors, and the Darkness's music, and how,” she struggled against the trailing edges of thought that beckoned her away from this diamond focus, “how I am not like everyone else...” Her focus shattered, and she sank silently to the floor to wrap her arms around Orischaen, who butted his head against hers. She pressed her face into his fur and shivered, feeling the depths of her Sapphire power bleed away into the abyss like mist on a sunny day. Holding it all in took so much effort; it was easier to let Sapphire blend with Green and Red and float like gauze in the Darkness, ready to hand if it were needed. She wondered how Luc carried the intensity of the Red inside him all the time, banked coals awaiting only a breath to become a blaze.  _ Maybe if I ask him, he will show me how he preserves the fire his Jewel burns. _

“Roueneil,” Devara's voice was tired and hesitant. “Rou, honey, we really were trying to do the best for you that we could. Maybe we should have told you earlier, and I'm sorry if we should have and have hurt you now because of that. We didn't know if you would be safe otherwise. We knew we don't have the sheer power to hold off all the danger that might threaten you, so we thought secrecy was our safest bet. You've grown up safe, so I can't say we chose wrong. We never wanted to hurt you. I've done everything I can for all these years to take care of you, teach you what you wanted to know, love you and provide for you. You know we both love you.”

_ I had no idea she didn't even know who she was, _ Luc sent on a private thread to Saya.  _ I thought this was just going to be a case of protective parents and a young girl's desire to go exploring. I didn't realize we'd be stomping all over their family dynamics. _

_ Family dynamics based on lies get stomped on, _ a mental shrug.  _ They should've told her before now. Look at 'er, she's not so far from being able to make the Offering. When she was little, sure, don't tell her 'cause she won't be able to keep it secret. But what's the excuse since then? One of those things where yer too committed to the lie to know how to stop.  _

“Why was I born?” came Roueneil's quiet question.

“What was that, hon?” Devara asked.

“Why was I born? You said Witch is born when she's needed. And you said she's the Black-Jeweled Queen of Ebon Askavi. I'm not a Queen and I won't ever wear Black Jewels, so why was I born? Do I have … does someone need me? Do I have to do something?”

Mellissa and Devara looked at each other. Mellissa traced patterns in the wood of the table.  _ How do you tell your daughter 'You're a person who's always been born for a great destiny, but we don't seem to have any particular great destinies available'? I cannot think of a more demoralizing thing to tell her right when she's had her identity thrown into question and her faith in Devara and I shaken to this extent. _

Devara sighed. “Of course you don't have to do something, you're my precious, most favorite niece even if you never do anything but live here at the temple and help me cook.”

Roueneil's chin jutted forward. “That's not what I meant.”

She held up a hand. “I know honey, I know. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to ignore what you're saying. The simple fact of it is that we don't know. In the stories, Witch has come when there were specific things that needed to be done that only she could do. We don't know if there's something, somewhere that needs you to take care of it–” Luc coughed into his hand. Devara's eyes cut sideways to skewer him. “What.”

He gave her his most disarming smile, spreading his hands across the table. “It's just that, there's an abusive Queen dead-set on ruining every person of power or integrity within her Territory just because it amuses her, less than three days' ride from here. So, if Roueneil is looking for something to do…” He transferred his smile to the girl, who met it with a shy one of her own, looking up over the cat's head.

“No,” Mellissa's voice was firm. “She wasn't born to help throw your petty tyrant off her lawful throne.”

“How can you be so sure?” Luc demanded. His tone trod the edge of rudeness, and he knew it, but he couldn't bring himself to back down. “It's a worthy cause, and she's here, and the tangled web I wove–”

“Could have meant anything. It could have been intended only to bring us – Roueneil and her family – to this very conversation.” Mellissa's voice was cool and smooth as fresh fallen snow. “Frankly, a single bad Queen is not worth the Darkness's time to shape and give flesh to Witch when nearly anyone could deal with her. What Jewels does your Lady Ankira wear, for that matter?”

He could hear Saya next to him gritting his teeth over the possessive pronoun.  _ Leash it, if you can, my friend. A fight here will serve us poorly. _ “She wears the Green, sister of the Hourglass.”

Mellissa's upper lip curled faintly. “You yourself wear darker Jewels than she. Why haven't you dealt with her yourself?”

“Don't be stupid,” Devara snorted. Luc unclenched his fists and felt the surprise wash off of Saya. Mellissa flushed as if she'd been slapped. “Queens are not like other witches, and you know that. Lady Ankira has, I assume, a court, with however many circles in it that she can fill, and a Guard devoted entirely to her protection, even leaving aside the question of citizens loyal through genuine respect or fear. If deposing or killing a Queen were as easy as walking up to one and unleashing a blast of power, there would be no bad Queens anywhere.”

Spots of hectic color showed high on Mellissa's flushed cheeks. “If someone wears dark enough Jewels, those shouldn't really be obstacles.”

“Y'don't think even one of the dark-Jeweled Blood can be stabbed in the back?” Saya asked. He braced his elbows on the table and gestured with one hand, emphasizing his words. “Havin' power and knowin' how t' use it are different things. Even if they weren't, numbers can overwhelm any individual, no matter how powerful – and sheer knowingness can defeat 'em. If Ankira's holed up in her castle what has but one hidden entrance, and y'don't know where that is, how d'you get in? Craft will blow a great big hole in her wall, sure, but it mayn't shield you from the Guardsmen on the other side. Almost surely won't shield you from the poison capsules she's planted in the bricks to guard against that exact thing, so when y'shatter the wall y'smash the capsules and waves of poison spray straight out 'n into yer lungs. And then y'die coughing and choking on yer own blood as yer lungs liquify and dissolve in yer chest–”

“Stop,” Mellissa cried. “Stop, I'm sorry, it's just not fair to ask my daughter to throw herself into a war zone, why can't you just do it yourself why do you need her,  _ why do you need her, stop _ ...” Devara drew Mellissa into her arms as the younger woman wept. 

She looked over at the two men, then at Roueneil. “I'm going to take her and some of this tea outside where we can talk. Can you all mind yourselves without doing anything too rash in the next few minutes?” She waited until all three had nodded before easing Mellissa to her feet to guide her outside to sit under the apple trees.

Saya reached a careful hand out to Orischaen, who leaned forward to press his nose to it and sniff. He turned his head and sneezed, almost daintily, and the barbarian grinned. “I reckon that's close enough to a handsclasp, Orischaen. Yer dead set on coming along with us?”

_ I am, _ came the steady reply.  _ Roueneil needs someone around who can keep both his eyes on her instead of splitting his attention. I am not criticizing either of you, _ a flick of his ears included Luc in the statement, _ but you have many things on your mind, and she will not be absolute priority for either of you. _

“That's actually true,” Luc said almost apologetically, looking at Roueneil. She glanced up to meet his eyes briefly before going back to nestling against Orischaen's back. “We won't be able to pay perfect attention to you, Roueneil. We won't always be able to pay all of our attention to you, because we have fellow fighters we care about and work with as well as an entire campaign to wage.”

She nodded. “I do not actually need babysitters, no matter what Orischaen says.” She shook the cat lightly, and he laid his ears back against his head briefly. “I do not know what help I will be. But if he is with me, I will not be a burden to you, and I feel like I need to go with you. If that is still a thing with which you are okay?” Her voice rose with a questioning lilt.

Saya waited for Luc's nod before telling her, “Aye, little bird. We'll be right glad t'have you along with us.” His eyes shifted slightly. “You and yer great beast of a cat there.”

Orischaen flicked his ears slightly backwards and sent a wave of amusement toward Saya, his version of a laugh.  _ Roueneil, we do not know how long your mother and aunt will be outside. We would do well to use this time wisely, perhaps by packing whatever will go with us. _ Roueneil nodded and stood up, making Luc wince as he imagined how stiff and cramped his joints would be after kneeling in that position for any length of time. The girl showed no sign of any stiffness or pain, though; she rolled to her feet in one graceful motion and ruffled the fur on Orischaen's head.  _ Prince Saya, Luc, perhaps one or both of you could advise us on what to pack? I have no experience gathering supplies for humans, and Roueneil has never left her home before.  _

“That's good sense right there,” Saya's gruff voice held a definite core of warm approval. “Most people're pretty terrible at packing fer long travel – no offense, Roueneil.” She waved his disclaimer away. “'S not just about bringing the right amount of things; y'gotta know which things to bring. And we know Prieje's climate and our own supplies better'n you do, of course. C'mon, let's go get you set up.”

Roueneil led them to her room, right next to Devara's. As he followed her, Luc reached for Devara's mind.  _ Roueneil is packing, and we're helping her. I didn't want you to come back inside and panic because you didn't see her. _ As soon as he felt her acknowledgment, he dropped the contact. It wasn't his place to criticize the Priestess or her Black Widow sister, so he planned to keep conversation with them minimal until his feelings about what they had told – and not told – Roueneil settled. With any luck, they could be on their way shortly and he wouldn't have any trouble holding his tongue.

 


	18. Chapter 18

Devara led Mellissa outside and sat down on the stoop next to her. She set the mug of tea on her other side and wrapped her arm around Mellissa's shoulders, stroking her back as she sniffled. “Mellissa, sweetie, what's wrong? You kinda went all to pieces in there.”

Mellissa sniffed again. “Oh Devara, I'm sorry. I just … I was listening to him describe those awful things, and all I could see in my mind was Roueneil being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or walking into one of their battles or traps or, or something even worse, and ending up all torn to pieces...” She hiccuped slightly, fighting down a quaver in her voice. “How can we let her go off into that? You know how she is, how she gets distracted or interested in things and just – just takes off after them.”

“Like she did about Ankira, I know, I know,” Devara soothed her. “But it's not like she's going by herself. Saya and Luc seem like very capable, powerful men, and I'm sure they'll look after her. And,” she hesitated, “and we were never going to get to keep her forever, Mellissa. She's special, you know that. You're the one who told me you thought she would be Witch, before she was even born. We can't keep her here, safe and far away from everyone in the outside world. That's not why she was born.”

“We don't know why she was born,” Mellissa ground out. “I've woven tangled webs every time I thought I might get a clear answer, and every time the answers have been blurred, unhelpful, contradictory. No useful message, nothing I can use and plan for. I don't know how else to ask for guidance or ask what I should be preparing her for.”

“Maybe we aren't supposed to be preparing her. Maybe we were just supposed to help her grow up as a good person. If you never got any clear message or advice, maybe it was because we didn't need any …” She trailed off as Mellissa shook her head.

“She's Witch.” She made a helpless gesture, shrugging her shoulders. “Witch is born for a purpose; the Darkness sends her to us for a reason. I thought after Orischaen came to her, things were starting to fall into place and whyever she was needed would make itself clear soon. But it can't be this, something this … tawdry, this violent.”

Devara hmmm'ed to herself as she considered her sister's words. “The Blood are violent, though, or at least we all have the potential to be. It runs right alongside the power we're born with. And it seems like removing an abusive Queen might be a worthy cause for her.”

“A Queen from a short-lived race?” Mellissa was skeptical. “She'll be gone in a few years anyway. Why would the Darkness shape power to such a purpose when a bare few decades would take care of the problem all on their own?” Her voice rose. “Why would my daughter need to risk her life over that?”

“Shhh,” Devara shushed her, rubbing circles on her back. “She's my niece, I love her too. I don't want her hurt any more than you do. But this is what she wants to do, and I think we'd be foolish to try and forbid her. Mellissa, I don't like it. I don't want her this far away from us. But I don't think we can keep her here without damaging her trust in us and possibly squashing her spirit. We have to let her go, and trust Orischaen – and Saya and Luc – to bring her back safely.”

Mellissa regarded her, tears still shining in her eyes, then inclined her head in an acknowledgment that was not quite an agreement. “I may not be able to stop her, but I don't have to like it.”

"No, you don't, but I think if you try to make this a fight, we may lose her for longer than we want. Mellissa, please see that she's old enough to make this choice, and all we can do is try and support her as best we can." She tilted her head, listening to Luc's brief statement. "She's gone to pack her things. If you want to be able to give her any parting advice or supplies, if you want her to listen to you at all, you've got to accept this, and you've got to accept it fast."

Mellissa scrubbed her hands against her face, her chin still braced stubbornly. "I don't know if I can. How are you so okay with this? She could die out there!" Her eyes turned calculating. "And she's still young enough that I could demand she stay here; I don't _have_  to let her go."

_ I shouldn't shake her. She's a mother afraid for her daughter, and shaking her until her teeth rattle, no matter how satisfying, isn't going to help anyone here. _ "You could. But she's aware now of who she is, and she's growing into her power in a serious way -- you know she's coming near the age to make the Offering -- and if you try to forbid her trying this path, she may just do it behind your back. Don't be ridiculous. She's Witch, and this day was always going to come." Within her, in the well of power she associated with her Jewels and with the Darkness which gifted them to her, she felt a stirring of warmth. She pressed a hand to her chest unconsciously. "We have to let her become who she was born to be."

"I don't know if I can," came Mellissa's whispered reply.

"You'd better figure it out fast then," Devara said sternly. "She isn't going to wait around for you, when she's already decided this is what she needs to do."

 

 

Roueneil wore a sturdy satchel across her shoulder, and an ingenious harness was strapped around Orischaen's flanks and chest to hold a small pouch. Luc and Saya had their own packs as well, and if those were slightly heavier than they had been when they arrived at the temple, well, that was a small price to pay for their new allies.

Mellissa took in their preparations with resigned eyes and a sinking heart.  _ She's dead-set on this path, and Devara is right, forbidding her would only make it more appealing. All I can do is hope that when things become too brutal and horrifying, she has the sense to come back here, where she belongs, until we can figure out what she's  _ truly _ meant to be doing with her life. _ “I see you've made yourself ready to go, Roueneil,” she said calmly. Her daughter nodded. “I cannot say I agree with the decision you have made. I do acknowledge, though, that you have made it, and I hope,” her voice trembled and broke as she reached for her daughter, to embrace her for possibly the last time, “I hope you come back to us safely.”

Roueneil squeezed her tightly. “I will, Mama, I will be safe and good, just like you have always told me to, and I will come back to you and Auntie Devara as soon as we have taught the bad Queen how to behave.”

_ Telling her I doubt any part of this mission is too much like wishing her ill, and yet I cannot honestly say I expect them to succeed. I wish she weren't going.  _ Silently, Mellissa let her go so that Devara could say her goodbyes.

“Be well and stay safe, honey,” Devara mumbled into her niece's hair. “Let them take care of you when they can, and remember that there are bad people in the world as well as good ones.”

“I will, Aunt,” Roueneil nodded as she stepped back.

Luc bowed slightly to the two women while Saya inclined his head. “We thank you for your hospitality, ladies, and we hope to see you next in happier circumstances.”

Devara sketched the blessing of Mother Night over them, while Mellissa simply nodded, a stony expression on her face. “You are taking my heart with you,” she said at last. “Have a care with it.”

Luc bowed again, deeper. “Be assured that we will.” And with that, they took their leave, bidding farewell to everything Roueneil had ever known.

 


	19. Chapter 19

"Why is Orischaen wearing that harness?" Luc asked, once they had walked long enough that he felt breaking the silence wouldn't be painfully awkward.

"Hmm?" Roueneil looked down at Orischaen. "Oh, his purse. We figured out a while back that no one is ever going to try to steal things from Orischaen, so we made him a purse of his own, to carry very important things like traveling money or shinies or crow feathers."

The two men exchanged a glance over her head. "I thought your family didn't travel?" Luc asked carefully.

"We don't, but sometimes Mama or Aunt Devara would let me go into town to buy groceries or supplies for the temple, and Orischaen came with me, so we let him carry the money. Because everybody says that's safer."

"They're probably right about that," Saya said gravely. "Are crow feathers important?"

Roueneil beamed up at him. "Crow feathers are for good dreams, and for finding things."

“Ah. In that case, I'll be sure and let you know if I see any.”

“Thank you!” she chirped.

Luc reached for Saya on a private spear thread. _I know I'm no expert in guessing people's ages, but the long-lived races are even harder for me to estimate than your people. Sometimes, she sounds like a kid to me, but she's obviously close enough to making her Offering that she's starting to feel the edges of her power and expand her range within the abyss. So if you had to approximate her age into something useful for me, where would you peg it?_

Saya mulled Luc's question over for a few minutes while they walked. _I'd say prob'ly about seventeen or eighteen. Right at th'edge of physical maturity, prob'ly capable of carrying a child to term, easing outta the hormones and all that mess of puberty. She could prob'ly make the Offering now, if she had some dire need, but she'll be more comfortable in a year or so – or th'equivalent, anyway._

Luc sent back, _That's somewhat more reassuring. She still seems very young, or very sheltered, or something._

_She has been sheltered, if she's lived her whole life in that temple._

_Well, sure, but she … it's different. You have to have noticed. Maybe naïve is the word? She doesn't seem to have quite registered the reality of the things going on around her. I'm just going to feel very guilty if, in a few days, she realizes she hates being away from her family and is terrified._

_All we kin do is keep an eye on 'er._ Saya sent the mental impression of a shrug. _No sense worrying about it 'til it happens._

Luc grumbled to himself, but let it drop. The walk, at least, was perfectly fine – enough sun to be warm, enough clouds not to be baking while they walked. They'd been following a well-worn path since they left the main road, and in another half-hour or so, they should be able to catch the Opal Wind to their contact, pick up supplies, and head back to Prieje.

 

"Wheew," Luc exhaled as they came within sight of the encampment. "I am so tired I'm genuinely considering falling asleep standing up." He turned to the dark-haired young woman beside him. "If I fall asleep still on my feet, please make Saya catch me."

 _I could catch you_ , Orischaen sent on a psychic thread. _Then I could remind you to stay awake while you walk. That would be helpful for everyone._

"I thank you, good sir, but I must decline your kind offer. I fear your reminder would render me incapable of keeping my feet no matter how much I might want to."

 _That does seem possible_ , the cat admitted with a flick of his ears.

Roueneil smothered a giggle at them, while Saya rolled his eyes. "C'mon, you two. I'm lookin' forward t' bein' able t' sleep in my own bed and eat my own cooking instead of that swill Luc likes to pass off as stew."

"It _is_ stew," Luc insisted in an aggrieved tone. "Just because you have some deep-seated psychological issues with tarragon doesn't make my stew inedible! My stew was perfectly good. Wasn't my stew perfectly good, Roueneil?"

Her dark eyes met his guilelessly. "Orischaen said it was delicious."

Luc spun back to Saya triumphantly. "There you have it – delicious! Wait," he turned back to the girl, "why are you telling me what Orischaen said? What did you think of it?"

She blinked at him. "I let him eat mine."

Saya chortled next to him, shoulders shaking. "Oh aye, 'delicious', that's what it was. It tasted like a damn bouquet. Somewhere up ahead of us, Millie's got a chicken with my name on it, and I'm gonna call it Dinner. Fer about ten minutes. Then I'm gonna eat it." Roueneil and Luc stared at him, her perplexed, him pitying. "What?"

"Saya, man," Luc said, "you've got to learn when to end your jokes. That one went on about three sentences too long."

Saya took a playful swing at his shoulder – a swing that still ended with Luc swearing and rubbing his shoulder – and started the trudge into the encampment. Five or six cabins were scattered around the clearing, tucked back among the trees, though an observant eye could pick them out. Millie's cabin was the one nearest the trail, through no accident. She had a finely tuned sense of their territory and the people who were frequently in or out of it. Her Rose Jewel wouldn't pose much of a threat to anyone likely to be attacking them, but the advance warning she could provide about incoming threats would give them time to get stronger warriors into place – and the Green-Jeweled twins who shared her cabin, her lover and her lover's brother, could hold off most dangers for at least a short time. All members of the resistance who came through this particular encampment either checked in with Millie first thing or were quickly intercepted by her or the twins.

Saya couldn't wait to see what she was going to make of Roueneil. He'd been working with the resistance for nearly three years now, ever since he made the Offering to the Darkness and left Glacia to find a cause worth fighting for. And he'd yet to see anything surprise Millie to the extent that he was about to.

"Come this way with us, little bird," he rumbled. Roueneil obediently followed them, Orischaen pacing docilely on her left side. They headed toward the nearest cabin. A red-haired woman who looked easily as old as Devara or older stepped out the door to greet them barefoot, waving them closer.

"Saya! Luc! Welcome back to the fit and furor, me buckos!"

Luc laughed merrily and waved back. Saya grinned. Roueneil admired the molten copper of the woman's hair and decided she probably liked her. _If she's as warm as her hair, and as honest as her feet, maybe she will be my friend._

Orischaen butted against her hand. _Who wouldn't want to be your friend?_

 _I confuse people. It makes some of them not like me,_ she told him matter-of-factly.

Rather than respond, Orischaen nuzzled her hand again.

The red-haired woman greeted Saya with a bone-crushing hug, pounding him on the back. “Welcome back, boyo. It's been far too quiet without the two of you here to raise Hell and sing Mother Night to her sleep.” She drew Luc to her, kissed both his cheeks, and squeezed his upper arms. “How did your trip go? We expected you back maybe a little earlier than this, but as long as everything went safely I suppose that's fine?” A beat passed before the rising lilt at the end of her question registered as an inquiry rather than a statement.

“We lost some time in our travels, but we broughtcha someone t'meet.” Saya reached back and touched Roueneil's shoulder, guiding her forward to meet Millie's eyes. “Millie, I'd like you t'meet an extraordinary young lady. Roueneil, this is Millie, who's kinda the center of our merry band here. I think you'll like 'er.”

Millie studied the young woman in front of her. She was slender, with gentle curves over the skinniness of adolescence. Her skin was the color of warm honey, somewhat lighter than most Dhemlan natives, so perhaps she was a halfbreed with a parent or even a grandparent from one of the short-lived races. Her hair fell past her hips, dark, as would be expected. Her features were a touch sharp, her cheekbones high and pronounced, her lips full, and her eyes … Millie squinted in surprise. Her eyes were not the liquid gold of Dhemlans or the other long-lived races. Instead, they were dark, nearly as dark as her hair, and touched with a lighter color that might have been blue-gray or rich cerulean or even indigo. Her eyes glistened like polished crystal or deep pools, and their color … Millie blinked and realized she'd been staring at this girl for several seconds in silence. She thrust her hand out in front of her.

“Nice to meet you, Roueneil. If these two vouch for you, I believe you must be a thoroughly nice human being, and you're welcome among us, for what that's worth.” She smiled on the last few words to remove any sting from them.

Roueneil shook her hand carefully. “The pleasure of meeting you is all mine. Prince Saya and Luc have been very kind to let me come along on their trip and help to teach the bad Queen how she should act.” Orischaen flowed up from behind her to sit on her left side, enormous paws tucked primly under his body. His head came up even with her lower ribs. He blinked green-gold eyes up at Millie, though he didn't have to look very far up in order to meet her eyes.

“Oh,” Roueneil said, blushing faintly. “This is Prince Orischaen, a Prince from Arceria. He is my friend, and he asked to come too, so Prince Saya and Luc let him.”

Millie stared openly at the cat, torn between instinctive fear and considerable curiosity. “Hello, Prince Orischaen,” she said without a tremble in her voice. “I'm afraid I don't rightly know how to shake hands with someone of your considerable size and, and number of feet. But I'm pleased to make your acquaintance all the same.”

 _As I am to make yours,_ he replied steadily. Millie jumped at the first touch of his mind, but she caught herself shortly and didn't flinch as he spoke. _I am here to look after Roueneil, though I will also be happily looking forward to serving the cause that Saya and Luc serve._

Roueneil made a face at him. “I don't actually need a babysitter.”

_You may say that all you like, but it will not change the situation, nor will it persuade me to do anything other than keep an eye on you._

His tart response set Millie somewhat at ease: no one that fussed over the younger generation like that could be completely alien from her own mindset. “Well, you're both welcome here. How much have Saya and Luc told you?”

“They told us that there is a bad Queen here who hurts people and does not serve her people as she should, and that they are trying to make her be a good Queen or to get another Queen who does not hurt people. Is that right?”

Millie quirked an eyebrow at the two men but nodded to Roueneil. “Aye, that's a bit simplistic perhaps, but it's accurate enough. We're trying to save our Territory, preserve what's good in our way of life here. Ankira either doesn't care about what she ruins or reckons it's worth the price to indulge her every whim while it lasts.” She eyed the girl sternly. _I hope she knows what she's getting herself into, and isn't going to be some shrinking violet we end up having to rescue._ “There'll be fighting, before all's done here. Are you prepared for that? I just don't want you surprised by real violence or even outright killing, though we're trying to avoid a full-blown bloodbath.”

Roueneil smiled slightly, creases appearing at the corners of her eyes. Long lashes framed her dark eyes, casting faint shadows on her cheeks. Her eyes cleared and focused, somehow more present than before, opening onto a vast darkness as of a field of stars. Millie blinked hard, trying to wipe away the vague impressions of shadows she saw around the girl. They faded as Roueneil nodded and said, “I understand. Sometimes, bad people can only be stopped by someone making them stop. I am here with Saya and Luc to help make the bad Queen stop.”

“In that case, be welcome.” Millie grasped her hand again, then pointed toward a second cabin, across the clearing. “That's where Saya and Luc stay. You're welcome to stay with them for now, although we can probably find a place somewhere else if you'd rather not be sharing their space.”

“If they do not mind Orischaen and me staying with them, I do not mind either.” She looked up at Saya. “Is that acceptable, Prince Saya?”

He nodded without even looking at Luc. Luc couldn't decide if he was pleased Saya knew he would be firmly in favor of this decision or if he was irritated that his agreement was being taken for granted. Either way, he followed as Saya led Roueneil and Orischaen to the cabin that would be their home for the foreseeable future.


	20. Chapter 20

The cabin was a small house, cozy without being terribly crowded. Luc gestured upward as soon as they entered, indicating a set of stairs and a fairly open loft that took up essentially the entire upper floor. "That will be your domain, Roueneil, if you and Orischaen don't mind using the stairs. Saya and I have been using it for storage and extra space when things get crowded around here, so we can spare it for you easily."

"That sounds good to me," Roueneil dimpled. "Come on, Orischaen." She carried her satchel up the stairs and explored her home away from home. The loft wrapped around three walls of the cabin, excepting only the wall in which the door was set. Rather than being separated into individual rooms, the entire loft was one open space. Leaning on the balcony railing, Roueneil looked down into the main room. A pair of glazed windows let sunlight stream in all along one wall, gilding the polished wooden floors. One corner, saturated with afternoon light, held a pair of bookcases, a scuffed up armchair, and a patterned rug which bore the faint marks of footprints and tattered edges. The opposite wall lay in heavier shade. Quilts in a variety of textures covered a bed in the shadows with a small wardrobe standing next to it. Orischaen prowled through the loft, then padded back down the stairs.

_ When you have put your things away, come down, please, and let's talk about strategies _ , he sent on a private thread to Roueneil. 

She put away her few clothes; back at the temple, she hadn't seen a reason to pack everything she owned, and now that she was here, that seemed like a good decision. She wouldn't be terribly cramped in the loft, but she didn't have infinite storage space, either.

On the first floor, Saya sliced bread and heated a small ham that had been stored in the coldbox. It turned itself slowly, hovering over a tongue of witchfire, while he set out plates and thick slices of warm bread on each. When the ham was warm, more slices of that went atop each piece of bread, and he carried the plates into the living room. Luc was stretched out along a comfortably lumpy sofa, whistling aimlessly. When Saya handed him a plate, he smiled and hauled himself upright to a sitting position. Roueneil tucked herself into an armchair, knees turned sideways, feet under her. Saya had turned to sit down when Orischaen bounded across the floor in an almost kittenish move to bat at the man's feet and knees.

Given Orischaen's size, Saya toppled over almost immediately, barely managing to set the plate of food on the sofa before ending up on the floor. He swung at the cat, swatting him in the shoulder, while Orischaen bounded away and then back, batting at Saya's hand. Luc burst out laughing at the sight.

"It's just, he's so big, and you're so clumsy, Mother Night," he gasped in between gales of laughter, trying to get his breath back.

Saya glared at him before hauling himself onto the sofa and retrieving his plate. “Eat up, y'monsters. After we get some food in us, we meet up at Millie's an' start the real plannin'.”

 

 

Millie let them in to her cabin, which had significantly more space than their own. An assortment of furniture and rugs were strewn about the open living area, and roughly a half-dozen other people were already present and seated. Saya and Luc together took up a small bench near one end of a table, while Roueneil sat on a rug near Luc's feet. Orischaen padded quietly into the room, acting as dignified as ever, and curled around Roueneil to lean against her back.

"Welcome, one and all. All our scattered flock is roosting here again, and we've found new allies and information in the meantime. I don't want to raise your hopes too early, me ducks, but we may be ready to move on Apre for real." A warm murmur of excitement like wind through trees followed Millie's words.

“Some of you haven't met yet, because you've been out a-roaming or because you're new to our merry band. Either way, we need to know each other – if you've a name you're keeping secret, perhaps because you have a family back home or because you have a past that needs hiding, that's fine as may be. But we need to be able to get in touch with each other, so names there must be. Hail the room as I get to ya.

"These two lovelies are my Isseia and her brother Aran. Wave to the room, you layabout,” she mimed a playful swat at Isseia's feet where they were propped on a footstool. Isseia grinned and kicked back. Isseia was a tall, lanky woman who wore her blonde hair coiled high on her head and hanging down in a myriad of thin braids. Her leather breeches were cut close to her long legs, but she wore a loose shirt almost too sheer to be presentable. A Green Jewel gleamed in her hair with thin gold chains accenting it, and another Green cabochon shone around her neck. Beside her sat Aran, another lanky blond. Where Isseia seemed almost raw-boned or stretched with her height and thinness, Aran looked more polished, poised like a heron perched in a brief moment of rest, ready to take flight at any moment. His Green Jewels matched his twin's, and the two of them were such a matched set that Roueneil felt a little dizzy when she looked at them. Isseia gave a lazy wave to the room, and Aran bowed from the waist where he sat. “Aran has finally managed to stay here for more than a few hours at a time, and he's anticipating sticking with us for this final campaign. So he'll be around enough for those of you who don't already know him to get comfortable with him.

“And over here we have the enchanting Tuileyar, say hello Leya.” A cheerful brunette bounced to her feet, waved, then plopped back into her seat. Leya's eyes were the same color as the Summer-sky necklace and ring she wore, and when she smiled, which so far was always, the corners of her mouth dimpled in charmingly. “Leya is our Priestess, so if you feel the need for prayers, handfastings, or drawing up a will–” she paused to let the round of chuckles die out “–please see her. Her cabin also has a little meditation garden we've managed to put together out behind it, so if you need that private space, again, see the adorable little Priestess.” Another round of good-natured laughter; Millie timed her comments as a professional comedian would, letting the gathered emotions swell and be expressed with her words.

“Etianne is our Healer; learn her face because I'm sure you all will need her at some point or another – although if you don't, congratulations!” Etianne proved to be a sturdy woman with warm hazel eyes and light brown hair. She bowed to everyone, the clip holding her hairbun in place gleaming in the lamplight. A Purple Dusk pendant hung around her neck with a Purple Dusk ring threaded onto the chain.

Roueneil squinted at the necklace.  _ Why have the ring on it as well as the pendant, I wonder? Why split the Jewel at all to set in two pieces of jewelry, if you're just going to wear them on the same chain? _

Orischaen's mind brushed hers.  _ She's a Healer, and she needs free hands for when she works. Probably she wears the ring for formal occasions, or perhaps at night when she's at home relaxing, either alone or only with those she's chosen. _

Roueneil sent him back her sudden rush of understanding, cool as layers of silk.

Millie continued her introductions. “Back here, being imposing, we have Krou,” and a gesture to the left, “and Slein. Say hello to Krou and Slein, everybody.” Krou and Slein did not look like people to whom an entire room should chorus HELLO, so the room wisely did not. “These two are two of our best warriors, so if you need protection on a run or come up with something that needs muscle to happen, talk to our looming Warlord or to Slein.” Krou was indeed looming, standing in the shadow behind the bench/couch on which Etianne and Slein were sitting. He wore dark colors, mottled dark browns and dark grays with hints of black, which blended well with his dark hair. Where Roueneil's hair shone ash-brown or almost blue in certain lights, Krou's hair was the dark brown of the deep forest, and he was nearly invisible when not in direct light. Black tattoos, abstract designs of lines curving, intertwining, and tapering to barbed points, bedecked his arms and neck, vanishing into his clothes. His Sapphire Jewels caught what little light crept into his vicinity and cast it back in the colors of the deep sea. Slein, seated in front of him, sat with one foot on the opposite knee and his arms stretched out across the back of the bench. His hair was the gleaming white-blond most common in Glacia, and his eyes were cool slate-blue, the color of a winter sky. The Opal Jewel around his neck completed the image of a Prince of winter who had deigned to spend his time among mere mortals. Roueneil contemplated him.  _ It's funny how much he looks like Saya, but looks completely different from Saya, too,  _ she sent on a private thread to Orischaen.  _ They look like they could almost be related. _

_ They aren't related, _ Orischaen replied.  _ They don't smell the same. But I think maybe they come from the same place. Saya is from Glacia, and I would bet my whiskers that Slein is as well. Look at that hair. _

Roueneil nodded absently and scratched his ears.  _ I do not know how alike people are supposed to look when they are from the same places. Maybe after this is done, we should travel, so I can see new people and how much they look like other people. _

The cat sent her a rumble of approval.

“Our two furthest wanderers just returned today – Saya and Luc, wave to everybody. Saya is our most gifted hunter; if you want to go out after game, tag him and take him with you. We could all use the extra food. And Dark Luc is the only Black Widow staying here these days, so if you get some kind of uneasy feeling or premonition or, I don't know, pressing curiosity that simply cannot be laid to rest, talk to him. Be prepared with bribes, though, the best don't come cheap!” A round of guffaws and friendly wolf whistles broke out, which Luc acknowledged with a modest smile and a broad wave. “And look at this, folks, they brought us a present. Roueneil, sug', stand on up so no one sees you wandering around and doesn't recognize you and calls the alarm.”

Roueneil stood on the tips of her toes, staring around the room with bright-eyed curiosity. Held at her side, her hand gave a little wave, rippling her fingers in a tentative greeting. _All these new faces, what are they thinking?_ With a mental shrug, her psychic abilities unfurled themselves like wings and began to brush against the edges of the minds closest to her, picking up emotional states and the flutters of quotidian concerns. An interrogative tug from behind her pulled her awareness back to her own body, where Orischaen had heaved himself up and sat on her feet. He stared up at her, green-gold eyes fixed on her own unfocused ones, until she met his eyes and drew her perceptions back into her body.

_ You were wandering _ , he sent on a private psychic thread. _ It may not be safe to do that here; we do not know these people yet. Try and remain contained, as much as you can. _

_ I do not know how much I can, _ Roueneil replied honestly.  _ I am not all that sure how I do … what I just did. But thank you for calling me back. _

_I told your dam and her sister that I would take care of you and look out for you. That is what I will do. When you wander, I will follow, and I will always find you._

She smiled and rubbed the top of his head.  _ Thank you. _

Millie was still speaking, as if she had noticed nothing. “Roueneil has joined us from Dhemlan. She is a Priestess and a Black Widow, though she's not fully trained yet, so don't go asking her to weave you love spells or any such foolishness.” She wagged a teasing figure at the assembly, drawing laughs, though a nervous undertone ran through them. “And her companion here is named Orischaen; some of you may have heard of the reclusive Arcerian cats, and we're lucky enough to get to meet one. Orischaen will be a considerable offensive asset for us. Make them welcome, everybody.” To polite applause and friendly smiles, Roueneil and Orischaen returned to their seats below eye level.

“With that all out of the way, let's plan an offensive strategy and get busy taking back our Territory.”

 

“We've had some successes so far,” Millie continued. “Her people are scared to disobey her, and they're scared to obey her and end up disappearing while doing their jobs. Throughout most of Prieje, people are on our side as long as she's not there directly threatening them – we can't ask them to risk more than passive support for us at this point, but they are giving that in spades. Our people don't get arrested, our movements don't get reported. This is crucial, because without that complicit silence, we wouldn't be able to get anything at all done, and neither would any of our comrades.”

Coolness brushed against Saya's thoughts like aloe vera. Goosebumps broke out on his arms.  _ What in the name of the High Lord of Hell –  _

_ I apologize, _ came the reply.  _ I do not think I am very good at this.  _

The 'voice' was definitely female, young – oh. Of course.  _ Yer doing fine, little bird. Just startled me is all. What is it yer needing from me? _

Hesitance.  _ She said 'comrades'. There are others fighting? _

_Aye, it's not just us against all the rest of Prieje. That'd be a fight I don't think anyone could win._

_So … where are they? How do we have allies without speaking to them?_

_They're scattered all over Prieje in little camps like this one, staying one step ahead of Ankira's Guards and being sneaky as all get out to boot. Don't worry about them, Roueneil. You'll see how it all works._

“That freedom of movement has given us a lot of information, too. Aran, can you take over what everyone here should know?”

With a nod, Aran stood. “Here's the quick summary of what we're facing, people: Ankira, her court, her Guard, all the Queens who answer to her, their courts and Guards, and all the Queens who answer to  _ them _ .” He paused a moment to let that sink in. “But we're pretty sure not all the Queens in Prieje are actually answering to her. In fact, we've been … observing … many of the District Courts for some time to work out which might be favorably inclined toward us, since deposing Ankira will not be enough on its own. We need to have at least an idea of which Queens have succumbed to her perversions and which are simply unable – or unwilling, which is its own separate concern – to stand against her.” From beside the couch where he'd been sitting, he picked up a roll of heavy parchment and held it high. “This is a list of Prieje's Queens. I've compiled all the information I've been able to get, from people who've traveled, people with relatives or friends, people who've served even, and marked each Queen as ally, passive ally, neutral, or enemy.” The room was deathly silent, and Aran's gaze was solemn. “It gives me no joy to say this. Queens are the heart of the Blood, and without them we are not whole. But the Queens who are firmly opposed to us, those who are marked enemies, must be eliminated. They have corrupted what it means to be Blood, what it means to be a guardian and caretaker of the realm, and they will kill us all if they have a chance. Even if we manage to remove Ankira without engaging any of them, they will end up being executed afterward anyway. They are too tainted and selfish to remain in power, and the only way to completely and permanently remove a Queen from power is to kill her. This is not a truth any of us want to face, but we must if we are to be successful.”

Isseia reached up from the couch to squeeze her brother's hand, and Millie nodded gravely from the arm of the couch where she perched. Aran took a visible breath and regained his composure. “I'm not advocating widespread murder; I don't think anyone's advocating that. But I do want to make sure we all survive, and that we aren't facing this same situation again a few years down the line. This list will be posted here in the big house – anyone who leaves the camp needs to look over the list for information on the courts ruling whatever area you'll be in. Understand?”

Slein raised a hand and waited for Aran's gesture. “Is that just information about the Queens, or is there recon about their courts as well?”

Aran nodded approvingly. “Very good question, thanks for bringing that up. So far, we haven't observed any noticeable splits in any of the lower courts. For now, unless new information comes to light, assume that all of these courts are loyal to their Queens and will act according to her wishes. Treat them as you would her.”

Slein nodded as well. His eyes unfocused as he leaned his head back, likely speaking to his partner on a psychic thread.

“As for Ankira's court itself,” Aran continued, “Leya has the most information about that. We've had to be very careful who we send into the capital, and so far Priests and Priestesses have had the best luck. The temples appear to be fairly strongly on our sides. So I'll let her take over.” He sat back onto the couch with his sister and Millie.

Leya stood, her heart-shaped face open and sincere. “To put it simply, we haven't been able to get anyone into Ankira's actual court. People in Apre are terrified of catching her attention or the eye of any of her Guards. The things going on there...” she shivered. “It's an awful situation, and I can't blame any of them for just trying to survive it, even when it seems they're letting fear paralyze them from solving the real problem. Anyway, what we do have is a map of the city, a pretty decent understanding of the way the Guard is operating within city limits, and a lot of gossip about her court members. Some of that's probably accurate; a lot of it probably isn't. We'll use what we can confirm and try to raise our odds.”

She looked around the room, meeting everyone's eyes. “What this information tells us is that we are not going to find a better time to make our move. We'll stay here at the camp for a few more days to build up supplies and let all of our allies know that we're preparing the attack. Then we'll all head for the capital. This is it, our toss of the dice. Over the next few days, I'll be meeting with everybody individually to give you all the information you want for your own part of the attack. We don't know how long we'll be in the capital – it might only be hours, it might be days, it might conceivably be weeks. Think on what your strengths and your goals are. Overall, we need Ankira either captured or killed, her First Circle either captured or killed, and her Guard killed.” Murmurs ran through the room at this: the Guard of a court was usually seen as little more than hired muscle, not responsible for the way the Queen they served conducted herself. Leya raised a hand palm-out to still the confusion. “Believe me, when you hear what the Guard has been doing, you'll agree.”

She recounted the information they had accumulated so far. In addition to aiding and abetting Ankira's own perversions, the Guard had basically taken over Apre. The Master of the Guard was widely known to be utterly and completely in love with his Queen, and he had done his best to instill that same rabid devotion into the Guard. Speaking ill of Ankira where a Guard could hear you would get you killed, if you were lucky. If you weren't, it would get your tongue cut out, your hands strapped to your ankles, and your body chained on a short pedestal in a park or square for anyone to do anything to you. Often, the Guard who had taken you in would stand with you and offer suggestions to passers-by as to what they might do to you. He might rape you a few times, explaining in the process that it was "just to loosen you up" for everyone else's amusement. He might feed you bowel looseners and leave you standing in a pile of your own waste, liquid shit running down your legs. He might beat you and use Craft to hold you in position for others to take turns. No one could say for sure what would happen, because there were no rules in place, no standards to adhere to. If you spoke against the Queen, your body became the property of the Guard who heard you. If you wrote against the Queen, your body became the property of the Guard who read your words.

If you helped rebels, though, or tried to physically or magically act against the Queen, your body became the Queen's property. And the stories that made it back about the Queen's punishments made the Guards look kind and understanding. Her Consort, it was said, wore a ring of braided leather around his sex organ with spells worked into every inch of it. Apre's citizens whispered, behind closed doors, wearing cloaks that hid their faces, that a word from Ankira could force her Consort's cock to hardness and leave him burning with desire that no quantity of sex would quench until she told him it was enough. They said the spells woven into that leather responded to her voice and made the torment of safframate seem like a gentle massage. They said that her Consort bled and bruised under Ankira's lash and paddle, because when she had found him, he had been dominant, sadistic, and generous, causing pain to his lovers only to show them greater pleasure. She had not been able to stand even the edges of the pain he inflicted, and in furious shame, she had forbidden him ever to hurt her and set the spelled ring on him to force his obedience. Now, when she captured traitors, she turned them over to him and forced him to hurt them and ride them, activities which should have brought him immense satisfaction but which now only served to remind him that he could not have this freely. Instead of bringing his lovers to sharp climaxes, he had to watch them weep and beg and suffer and hate him, and he hated himself for it as well. No one could say if these stories were true, of course, because anyone given over to the Consort under the Queen's direction would die, but nearly everyone had a friend of a cousin's neighbor who would swear they saw part of it through a window or caught a glimpse through the garden gate.

Sometimes, when the Consort was too exhausted to be amusing, or when Ankira felt like seeking her own amusement, she would not turn a prisoner over to the Consort's coerced violence. Instead, she would take the prisoner into her garden. She would wrap the prisoner in a rich robe of fine-carded wool or thin silk, and she would lead him or her through the palace and out a side door that led into her personal garden. And that prisoner would never be seen or heard from again. The rumor was that Ankira tended to that garden herself and would not allow anyone else into it without her supervision. The rumor also was that Ankira could not find anyone who would tend her private garden, because the one man who had tried had put out his own eyes in horror of what he had seen there. What was certain was that, currently, no one but Ankira and her victims set foot in the garden.

"That's roughly the state of things there," Leya finished, her voice holding steady despite the horrors she recounted. "A lot of it is rumors, but enough of it has been observed – by others and by me, myself – that I'm unwilling to dismiss those rumors as untrue. If anything, I'd wager they're tamed down because the truth is too horrible for anyone to come up with as speculation. We've lost friends to some of these tortures." Winces and grimaces ran around the room. Etianne wiped away a tear. "I've seen some of the public ones inflicted, and believe me, it's worse than you can imagine. So that's what we face if we're caught, or if we fail." She looked around the room again. "Prepare yourselves. We will leave in five days."

 


	21. Chapter 21

Later that night, Luc knocked on the wall at the top of the stairs into Roueneil's loft. Orischaen raised his head, a white blur in the dim light, then lowered it back onto his paws. “You are welcome here,” came Roueneil's voice, echoing oddly off the walls of the mostly empty space. Luc found her sitting on the edge of her bed, braiding three gray silk cords together.

“What's that going to be?” he asked.

She ran her fingers along the inches already braided. “When I wear it to dance by a river in the moonlight, it will learn what silence is, and whenever I ask it after that, it will make me as silent as the river at night.”

Luc turned that over in his mind a few times. “So, it will be a bracelet or something that will make you silent?”

Roueneil nodded, fingers dancing over the cords.

He wrote further explanation off as a lost cause. “Roueneil, I know your mother is a Black Widow, and she started you on the basics of that training. How far did you get in that training?”

She tapped her index finger against her chin. “Mama taught me how to stretch my mind. I can talk to other people, and I can psychic-reach for them and read what is wrong in the wrinkles of their minds. I can dream all night and bring my dreams back to the light of the morning to read secrets in them, but I cannot ask for the dreams to come or plant a seed before I sleep to see what sprouts. She said that I should be learning the simplest tangled webs next, so she taught me the pieces of her loom and how to set it up and put it all together."

Luc nodded along as she spoke. _Sounds like Mellissa was taking her through the basic initiation in fairly textbook order. I can build on that._ "Would you like to start learning the basic webs? I can teach you those, before we move to Apre. The two simplest webs would be very useful for you and would help keep you safe while we're there."

"I think I would like to learn those very much," Roueneil replied. "But can we start tomorrow? Orischaen is getting tired, and my eyes are drying out."

Luc chuckled and patted her shoulder. "Get some sleep, girlie, and we'll start tomorrow while Saya goes out hunting with Krou. See you then."

Muttering quietly to herself, Roueneil nodded and tucked herself under the covers of her bed. Orischaen minced across the coverlet, stepping carefully, and arranged himself over her as an extra blanket.

 

“So here are the pieces for a travel loom,” Luc said, laying each one out on the table. “Name them for me, please.” 

Roueneil tapped each of the four long pieces that would fit together to make the frame for the web. “This one is fate, it goes on the bottom. Here are self and others, for right and left, and choice goes on the top.” She drew four short v-shaped pieces together in front of her. “These are the short legs. They go on the corners to lay the frame out flat above a table or desk. Or two of them can go on the corners of the fate piece and these,” she pointed to the last two pieces, which were long and slender, “can go on self and others to brace it upright.”

“Very good,” Luc said warmly. “And did your mother tell you what the two positions for the frame are called?”

“Yes she did,” Roueneil beamed. “If you lay the frame out with the short legs on each corner, that is called table style, because it is flat like a table. If you stand it up on two short legs with the two long legs for support, it is called easel style, because it looks like the easel an artist uses to set up a canvas.”

Luc tugged on the end of her hair playfully. “I see that your mother had a very clever and diligent student. Did she teach you anything further?”

“No,” Roueneil shook her head. “She said the next thing to learn was the web to draw an intention, but she did not think I was quite ready for that.” For a moment, her lips tightened wistfully. “I think she wished for me to wander less, and to dance closer to home, before she taught me to weave.”

Luc bit back the questions on the tip of his tongue and instead reached for Orischaen on a psychic thread.  _ When she says she wanders, what does she mean? Should I be worried about this? _

_ She wanders in the abyss; the Darkness is her birthright and her natural haven. Sometimes she wanders physically as well, but that has grown rarer as she has aged.  _ Orischaen paused, searching for the correct words.  _ I do not think you should be worried, precisely. But you should be aware of it. She may not always follow what you say. She may not always take steps in the proper order. She may not always remember necessary precautions. This is why Mellissa hesitated to teach her how to weave a tangled web. They have such potential for damage and madness. _

_ Should I even be teaching her this? _ Luc had to ask.  _ I didn't think – is she capable of learning it and using it safely? What if I-- _ get her hurt, show her the means by which she is lost in the Darkness forever, he thought but refused to articulate. What if I am the reason Witch no longer walks the earth. 

Orischaen sent him the mental impression of being swatted by an enormous paw.  _ She must learn it. She is born to it, and if she does not learn how to use the powers that course through her, they will use her and she will suffer for it as a leaf caught up in a river in flood suffers. There are dangers, but she must learn, and you are all she has available as a teacher.  _

_ Thank you for that vote of confidence, _ Luc replied dryly. “Roueneil, I think your mother was wise to be cautious. Tangled webs can easily trap a person's mind in the shadow world of dreams and visions; someone without proper caution can get pulled into the web and starve to death, unable to return to the physical world. But I want to teach you only the first two most basic webs, so we will be careful of what you learn. Promise me you will not practice this on your own until I know you are trained enough to not get lost in it. Alright, Rou? Can you promise me that?”

“I can,” she said, nodding firmly.

“Good then. In addition to the frame, you need spidersilk,” he pulled a spool of it out of the case and set it on the table, “and the appropriate oil.” Four vials of oils joined the spool of spidersilk. Roueneil picked one up and rolled it between her fingers. “You'll use a different oil depending on what you're doing with your web. There's vision oil for seeing the truth of things or the future, attraction oil to draw something to you or to someone else, protection oil to block something out or drive it away, control oil for casting illusions or manipulating someone's choices or perceptions. There are other blends, but those are the basics, so let's stick with those for now.”

“What goes into the oils? If there are more than just these, how do the other ones get made?”

“The Hourglass blends essential oils of different plants and minerals to get the different web oils. Each coven will have its own recipes, though there are general similarities, so these oils are made by the coven itself and given to members when they travel or leave. Some members enjoy the blending process enough to learn the recipes and make their own oils, especially if they plan to live elsewhere than with the coven. Most members, though, will just return to the coven for new blends.”

Roueneil studied the pale gold liquid in the vial she held. “This one says it is prickly and wild, like brambles and thistles growing up along a brick wall. It says  _ get out, get away _ and hisses.”

Luc chuckled a little weakly.  _ Mother Night, teaching her must have been a headache and a half, the leaps she makes.  _ "It's a protection oil, so that's probably why it pushes at you to get away. There are a few different stinging or poisonous plants in it, plus a couple drops of venom. If you were to coat the spidersilk in this, you could weave a web that would keep people from entering a room or house, or weave a web that could block out sickness or bad intentions." He met her eyes soberly. "You could also weave a web that could be laid into a picture frame or cloak and given to someone as a gift -- which would poison that person slowly and look like a wasting disease, so that it would be extremely unlikely that anyone would look for poison." Roueneil's eyes were wide and fixed on his. He reached over and plucked the oil from her nerveless fingers. "The tools of weaving a tangled web are not toys. We learn skills that can protect us and the people we love, and we learn skills that can kill and destroy anyone we choose. More often than not, those are the same skills. This is why Black Widow training takes place in one of the covens. Priestesses or Healers can travel to lessons every day and live safely at home with their families in between those lessons. Black Widows cannot. We stay with the Hourglass while we train so that we can search our own souls and come to know ourselves; we learn to analyze our own motives and feelings to ensure that we do not make snap decisions out of anger that will pass. We have too much capacity for lethal behavior and damaging reactions to allow ourselves to make decisions out of temporary anger."

Roueneil tilted her head, considering his words. "But I am not living with the Hourglass, and I do not know if I will ever be angry enough to poison someone to death." She thought she had responded most reasonably, but honesty compelled her to add, "Although if I did want to poison someone, I think I could probably do it without a tangled web. I would just ask the woods what plants would be bad for a person like me to eat." She fell silent again, nibbling her lip, for only a moment or two. "A tangled web would probably make it easier though. Why would I want to poison anyone?"

Luc opened and closed his mouth, at a loss for words. Orischaen's dry voice touched both their minds. _If we could poison Ankira, this would all be over much quicker, wouldn't it?_

"Eheh," Luc chuckled and shrugged, "you're not wrong. But Roueneil, I'd really prefer you not poison anyone. There's a long list of reasons why--”

“Is one of them because it's actually wrong to kill people?” Roueneil asked innocently, dark eyes guileless and fixed on his.

“Er, yes, actually.” Luc examined her suspiciously. “It's not the best idea ever to kill people, and for you, it might be even riskier, because you don't know yet how to cover your tracks or fool truth spells.”

“I will not try to poison people without your permission or help,” Roueneil said solemnly, then bounced lightly on her toes. “Now can you show me how to weave?”

Luc smiled despite himself. “I can. You know the pieces, the spidersilk, and the oils. There's one final thing that goes into setting up a web: the anchor-point. Where you tie the silk to start the web will vary depending on why you are weaving. There are multiple things to consider here. There is the side of the frame on which you anchor the web, which is where you start it. Then there is the first strand of the web, which is the second side you go to from your anchor point. Both of those things need to be decided before you start weaving, because those are the first two steps that will help walk your mind into the abyss and let the Darkness take over to shape your web as it should be shaped. That is what will ultimately make the web useful for whatever purpose you intend."

Roueneil nodded and slid off of her seat. Luc was about to call after her when she drifted back into the living area with a sheet of paper and a charcoal pencil. "Tell me," she said, and though there was nothing haughty or demanding in her voice, it held a matter-of-fact expectation of obedience that Luc found himself responding to without conscious volition.

"If you seek visions of the future, you anchor the silk on the fate side. Your second point will be the self side if you are trying to see your own future, and it will be the others side if you are trying to see the future of an entire situation or culture." His mouth twisted. "If you were trying to see how our rebellion will turn out, that's how you'd set up the web – fate, then others, then either choices or self, depending on how the Darkness led you. Which one you hit first would tell us a lot about how things will play out."

"Have you woven a tangled web to see how the rebellion will go yet?" Roueneil wanted to know, looking up from the notes she was scribbling.

"No," Luc said flatly. "There's too much riding on this for me to let a tangled web tell me we have no chance. And it's never a good idea to ask for the truth if you can't accept all of the possibilities. That would be ungrateful to the Darkness and the knowledge it's shown you."

"I would not wish to be ungrateful to the Darkness," she said seriously. "I will not ask questions to which I cannot handle the answers."

"That's a good policy. Returning to your frame, though, if you're setting up protection, poison, curses, traps, or guardians, you'll start the web on the side it's meant to affect. To protect yourself, start on the self side. To trap someone's mind in the web and watch him starve, start on the others side." Luc met Roueneil's startled gaze with his own. "Make no mistake, Roueneil. We're going into a war. We're staging the attack we hope will win the war, in fact. People are going to die, and we are going to kill some of them. I'm not saying let's turn Apre into a bloodbath – Darkness knows that's not our goal. But we are walking into life or death situations, and we will have to use every tool at our disposal. Are you willing to accept that?"

Roueneil looked down at her hands and nodded. He sighed and reached out with one figure to tip her chin up. "Hey, birdie." She kept looking down at her lap. "Look, I'm sorry, I don't mean to frighten you. I just want to make sure you understand the kind of brutality we're heading towards. If you don't want to be a part of it, there's still time for you to go back to your mother and aunt, where you'll be safe. This isn't really your fight, anyway."

Roueneil met his eyes, her own gone fierce and feral. "Not my fight? You heard what Leya said is done in this Queen's name and at this Queen's hands, this woman who rules with force and fear instead of in mutual concert with the people of her Territory. This woman who fights those under her and abuses their natural respect for the authority with which the Darkness gifted her. Not my fight? This is everyone's fight! This is the fight anyone who hears of it should be fighting, because there is no excuse for her abuses and there is even less excuse for those who stand idly by and let her do this! This  _ is _ my fight, and I will stand with you while there is breath left in me!"

Luc stared at her, startled and a little bit afraid. It was easy to forget that her wild and distracted demeanor veiled a power nearly as dark as his own. Hell's fire, after she made her Offering, she might well wear Jewels as dark as his.  _ And what in the name of Mother Night will become of us then?  _ he wondered. The answer was obvious, though. She was not a Queen; she could not rule. And she had a love of justice and kindness that Devara and Mellissa's upbringing had obviously worked deep into her spirit. If nothing persuaded her that people deserved destruction rather than correction and fresh chances, he could imagine her traveling the realms, setting wrongs to right and aiding those oppressed wherever she could.

"You're right, milady, and I was wrong to impugn your honor, even accidentally." Luc bowed to her from his seat. She regarded him warily, evidently expecting a joke of some kind. He spread his hands. "Really, Rou. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that you would let something terrible happen when you could stop it. I just meant that if you want to go home, be with your family, be safe, no one would demean you for that."

"I understand the offer you are making," she replied calmly, "but I will stay here for the next few days and travel with you and Prince Saya when you go to Apre and help you as best I can to have a good Queen again, because that is what a good person should do in this situation."

Orischaen's mental voice sounded in Luc's head.  _ She's hard to argue with, isn't she? I'm never sure if moments like this should be signs of rejoicing that she grasps mortal concepts like ethics or signs that we should be infinitely concerned with her unwillingness to compromise those ethics with the realities of behavior. _

_ You are being the opposite of helpful, _ Luc answered firmly. "I'm glad to hear that," he said aloud. "Now, what did your mother tell you is the first type of web an apprentice Black Widow learns?"

"An attraction web?" Roueneil's forehead creased charmingly as she ran through her memories of Mellissa's lessons. "A web to attract a particular intention or desire, right?"

"Yes, good. A web like this starts on the side of the frame that represents yourself, because it is calling your desire into being. You need to spin that desire into a physical shape so that it can manifest in the real world. This kind of web is the easiest to start with because it focuses on your own mind: you'll barely brush against the Twisted Kingdom, because you don't need particular symbols from the Darkness or glimpses of the future in order to call a particular intent to yourself. So, show me how you'd put this frame together to weave this web."

Hesitantly, Roueneil reached out for the pieces of the frame. The fate, self, others, and choice sides slotted together neatly, notches on each corner hollowed out to connect to the other sides. She lashed the four short legs to each corner, laying the frame out horizontally on top of the table as if it were a sheet of paper or a book. Each side of the frame was roughly two feet wide, so she had to stand over it to easily reach the entire frame. Luc watched each step of the process, waiting for her to step away and declare it complete. At the last, she reached for the spidersilk, but she let her hand fall back to her side and left it lying on the table.

Luc nodded approvingly. "Good girl; wait for your teacher to check your work before you move on to the next step." He reached out and lightly shook each side of the frame, shifting its balance on the leg attached at its corner. The side designated for the others wobbled, and the leg attached to it fell over on its side. He looked at Roueneil. She blushed and picked the leg up, reattaching it more sturdily this time. He completed his inspection and nodded his approval. "This will hold for you while you work. It's not unheard of to spend hours at a time on the more complex webs or the ones seeking visions. The simple webs like the one you're about to weave won't take you that long, but it's good to establish good habits before you need them. That's how you avoid having your mind sucked into the Twisted Kingdom and lost there while your body withers away and starves."

“Is it … how easy is it to get lost in the Twisted Kingdom?” She bit at her lower lip. “You have brought it up a few times, and Mama used to tell me about how students have to learn their precautions and take their studies in the proper order so that they do not end up lost in madness and cut off from this world. But how often does that happen?” Her gaze dipped down, then she raised her eyes to his again. “How afraid do I need to be?”

Luc took a deep breath, then another.  _ Can she handle the unadorned truth about this? _ he asked Orischaen.

_ Can you afford not to tell her the unadorned truth, is what you should be asking. And let me go ahead and clear that up for you: no, you cannot. _

_ Fair enough. _ "It is not common for a student to lose his or her way in the Twisted Kingdom, become trapped there, and either die or never return to the conscious world. That is an extreme consequence. But," he raised a finger warningly, "it is not as uncommon as the Hourglass would wish. In any given year, about a third of the students who are weaving their first webs will misstep in some way and end up in the Twisted Kingdom." 

Roueneil's mouth fell open slightly. A third? How could it be so many ... Mama did not act as though I had a one in three chance of losing my mind.  _ Maybe she thought the Twisted Kingdom wouldn't be such a big difference for you _ , a voice deep in her mind suggested, a cruel twist to the words, but she stifled that voice and ignored it. Luc was still talking.

"–mostly come back from it before too long and essentially unharmed. A few hours or even a couple of days wandering the edge of madness usually just functions to instill proper caution in that student in the future. Black Widows are also trained to draw a wandering mind back from that misty borderland between the conscious world and outright madness – that kind of training is a necessity for them to be able to repair their students' inevitable mistakes. Perhaps one student out of every couple hundred will make a serious mistake. They slip, or fall, or wander, or are pushed somehow beyond the borderlands of faded shadows and into the Twisted Kingdom itself. The chalice of their minds is damaged, perhaps permanently."

She tilted her head to the side. "Chalice? Like the fancy crystal Auntie Devara has for the temple when there are important guests or the special holidays?"

"The ... the chalice." Luc made a confused, abortive gesture with his hands. "Inside a person, the chalice is your mind, it's what holds your thoughts together with your personality. It's ... you could call it your sanity. When a person spends too long in the Twisted Kingdom, the chalice can crack or even shatter. And when a person goes through something terrifying or horrible, the chalice can crack or shatter and that person can fall into the Twisted Kingdom. It's two words for the same thing." He peered searchingly at her. "I don't want to insult your intelligence; I'm surprised. Have you never heard this term before?"

Roueneil shook her head slowly. "I think Mama has used it, perhaps, but not to me, or I would have asked before now what it meant. It means to not be insane, and it is what holds a person's thoughts neatly where they should be inside that person's head?"

Luc nodded. "That's a decent way of describing it, yes."

"I do not think I have one."

Luc laughed, half-sputtering. "Don't be ridiculous, of course you do." Her steady gaze turned his laughter rapidly to nervousness, though he could not have said what he was afraid of. "You have to. Otherwise you'd be completely mad--" He cut himself off with a snap.  _ Roueneil standing up and informing them she would scold Ankira about her behavior until she corrected it. _ His mind supplied him with a dozen little flickers, moments and behaviors he had seen but set aside to contemplate later – "later" easily becoming "never", because it would be too easy to draw uncomfortable conclusions about the girl he was coming to like. Roueneil answering things he hadn't said. Roueneil studying Saya's braids and plaiting them into her hair one morning, even the warrior pattern Saya had told him, on the first night they spent together, was a private braid pattern passed down through the men of his clan. Roueneil wandering away in the woods and returning with a handful of wild clover, saying they had caught the scent of a purple marten's song and would keep dazzle-headaches at bay as a tea. "Roueneil, everyone has a crystal chalice. It keeps the mind whole and unharmed as one of the necessary facets of the Self. There is the body, the chalice, and the Jewels -- physical, mental, and magical sides to our Selves. I honestly don't know of anything that could make it possible for a person not to have a chalice, much less be able to interact with other people in a meaningful way without one."

Dimly, at the edge of his vision, he was aware that Orischaen had crawled out from under the table and settled beside his chair. He vibrated with a nearly inaudible growl which Luc was beginning to feel in the soles of his feet and his teeth.  _ I'm not trying to press her or corner her. But look at her, she's not freaking out, she's not upset – and she isn't raving in the Twisted Kingdom, either! _

_ Have a care. She runs deeper than you know, and wilder, and you don't always know how she will react to the things you say. _

_...Noted._

Roueneil's eyes held his, the blue-tinted darkness clearing slowly from her usual half-focused gaze to something grounded and very present, nearly indigo. "You are a Black Widow, like Mama, so you are trained in fixing and healing minds. Does that mean you can inspect a person's crystal chalice to see if it is damaged?" Wordlessly, Luc nodded assent. "Then come," she said, "and see." The gates and shields all members of the Blood wrapped around their minds as a fundamental precaution fell before his perception, and she reached out with the tentative bridge building her mother had taught her.

Taking barely a moment to brace himself, Luc stretched out his psychic senses and followed the path she opened into the core of herself.

 

~

 

He falls into immense darkness, and the falling takes no motion and he does not move at all. Around him, there is the emptiness of a vaulted hall or an expanse of ocean at night. The darkness gleams and glimmers, different colors slowly coming to life. White filters down into sunny gold and a burnished warmth the tawny color of a tiger's eye. Below that, robin's egg blue deepens to the violet of twilight before melting into a wash of opalescent shimmers, flecks of all the colors above it twinkling and sparkling amid a milky luminescence. Rich green blooms like a forest gone wild with a thousand thousand breeds of plant life and transforms to the depths of the ocean, royal blue and touched with the iridescence of mother-of-pearl.

Luc sees all of this, the colors melting and touching along their saturated edges, and below the blue of deep water a dim redness winks up at him. He feels an answering pulse in himself -- his Red Jewels echoing the crimson glow like a heartbeat in the darkness. The Darkness, he realizes, is exactly what this is, and he recalls why he is in this place to begin with. Roueneil's crystal chalice. He must have slid deeper than he intended and wound up in the well of her Jewels, the channel each of the Blood has into the abyss of the Darkness. He begins to backtrack and takes careful steps toward his sense of his own mind, edging out of Roueneil's personal core. But it takes barely the beginning of a movement for him to be at the very edge of her mind. It doesn't make sense -- the edge of her mind cannot be a mere breath of a thought away from her inner well. There are boundaries, walls that separate layers of the Self from surface thoughts and inner feelings. And there is the crystal chalice that holds the mind together and provides an anchor for identity and a sense of Self.

Except that here, there is not. There are the colors like shifting veils or underwater aurorae, and there are winds that blow in small puffs or violent eddies, bringing strains of music or the cool whistle of mountain air. There are paths that appear for a moment and then dissolve into the wash of darkness. There are glistening strands of silvery-gold light like a vast web anchored in every color and beyond them. And everywhere he turns, there is the rustling hint of vast and innumerable wings, just beyond the edges of his vision and the range of his hearing.

Nowhere is there the crystalline chime of the chalice's flared stem. Nowhere is there the clarity of thoughts coiled neatly within the goblet bowl of the chalice, protected and cradled in safety. But he also does not see shattered crystal shards or the howling winds of the Twisted Kingdom scouring reason and logic from a mind's exposed connections. Here, everything is motion, the measured undulations of the deep sea or farthest reaches of outer space, but none of it is frantic or anxious. He does not find the danger, the mists, the sharp-edged rocks of the Twisted Kingdom lashing Roueneil's exposed mind.

He finds only slow waltzing radiance and shadows like waves cresting and receding. He finds only the suggestion of music and color and the limitless promise of the Darkness's embrace, the abyss as home and haven.

 

~

 

With a gasp, Luc broke eye contact with Roueneil and looked away. He blinked, surprised to find tears standing in his own eyes, and drew a deep, shuddering breath. As soon as he could stand, he pushed himself out of his chair and knelt on one knee.

"What are you doing!" Roueneil exclaimed. She leapt up, fidgeting from one foot to the other, and fluttered her hands in front of her mouth. "Get up, get up, what are you doing, bowing and kneeling is for Queens and Ladies and I suppose maybe Warlord Princes only Saya does not seem like the kind of person who would appreciate being knelt to, and I am not that kind of person either! Please stand up!" She darted forward to shake his shoulder slightly and tug at him.

He eased back onto his heels so that she would calm down, but he did not stand. "Roueneil, you are the most remarkable young woman I have ever known or had the good fortune of meeting."

A muffled squeak emerged from behind her hands.

"I have never known anyone like you, and I have never even heard of anyone who is at one with the Darkness and as at home in the abyss as you are. You are truly Witch, daughter of the Darkness, dreams made flesh, the living myth come to walk the realms again, and I am honored to know you. Please, consider me at your service should you ever have need for anything I can provide or do for you."

She studied him for a moment, her eyes becoming sad and frown lines forming in her cheeks. As Luc was about to ask her what as wrong, she choked out, "Does this mean you are not my friend anymore?"

"Of course not," he cried. "I will be your friend for as long as you want me to be, Lady Witch."

"Please do not call me that," she said, sounding close to tears. "My name is Roueneil, you know what my name is. Please call me by my name. I am not a different person than I was just a few minutes ago."

A flush of heat against his shoulder drew Luc's eyes sideways, where he met Orischaen's gaze, at his own eye level for the first time.  _ Cease this absurd demonstration of your feeble intellect. You are upsetting her. You, who know perhaps better than anyone who she is and of what she may be capable, are upsetting her. Do you want her upset? _ Without waiting for an answer, Orischaen paced over to Roueneil and sat beside her, wrapping his tail around her feet. She buried her trembling hand in the thick fur on his head; he nuzzled her hip.

Luc stood up, moving carefully. After a moment's consideration, he sat back down at the table. Roueneil followed suit, and Orischaen followed her, staying in contact with her hand. "I'm sorry, Rou," Luc said quietly. "I didn't mean to upset you. I'm just very surprised, and a bit ... I don't know. You are truly something new, unlike anyone else I've ever known or heard of. I don't even know what I should say to you at this point."

She gave him a watery smile. "You could say I was right," she teased gently, startling him into a laugh. "And you could show me how to weave this web."

"I suppose I should at that. Alright. Here's what you'll do: we'll anoint the spool of silk you're going to use with the attraction oil. For right now, you don't need to worry about what goes into it; learning to make the oils is a different part of the training entirely. Once we've rewound the silk and it's ready to use, you'll tie a square knot to attach the thread to -- which side of the frame?"

"To the side that represents myself, right? Because I need to attract my own desire?"

"Precisely," he nodded approvingly. "You'll reach for the frame and run your fingers along that side of it until a place feels right to start the weaving. You'll tie the first knot there. Next, you'll go to the fate side of the frame, and again, you'll bend the thread until the angle feels right to tie it off again. That's, unfortunately, where the specific instructions run out."

"Then how will I know what to do next?"

Luc rubbed his chin. "If you were any other initiate of the Hourglass, I'd put you through weeks of meditation training to tune your inner ear to hear the Darkness and let it guide your movements. You'd clean a room, finger paint, sew a simple robe, braid another initiate's hair, all kinds of fairly simple repetitive tasks. But for you, I think that will be less of a problem." He smiled at her, and she giggled back. "So, do what you do when you dance: listen to the Darkness. It will guide your hands, the same way it guides your steps and gestures when you dance. Fix your mind on what you want to draw to you. For this first web, I would think of something very simple -- perhaps light, which should make the web glow, or safety, which would make it a kind of generalized protection talisman. Or you could try and draw sunny weather; traveling in the rain is never a good time, and if the paths are dry, things will be more pleasant. Plus, Saya hates getting wet." He clasped his hands on the table beside the frame for her tangled web. "So, what do you think? Are you ready?"

"I think so ... Do you want me to try this now?" The creases between her eyebrows belied the confidence she tried to project in her voice.

"I do," he said firmly, "because I have faith in your ability, and this is the first step you must master to proceed in your training. But no Black Widow can override the instincts of another in regards to her own prowess: if you don't feel ready, I cannot instruct you to do this. I can only tell you that I think you are ready, and let you make the choice."

Roueneil stared down at her frame for a handful of heartbeats, then nodded. "I am ready," she said.

"Then let's begin." Luc put two of the vials away, leaving one filled with pale golden oil. He handed her the spool of spidersilk and popped the cap off of the oil. "Here, turn your fingers up," he moved her hand, turning it palm up, and dabbed oil across the pads of her fingers. "You'll run this oil across the thread until all of it is anointed. It'll probably take more than just a few drops, and that's fine."

Roueneil caught the end of the string between two fingers and began to slide it through the fingers of her right hand, rubbing the oil into the silk. It didn't take long to anoint the whole spool, as the task took very little effort. She wound up with a small pile of spidersilk, no longer coiled neatly onto the spool, which smelled slightly of herbs and summer air. Luc reached over to snag the end of the silk and wrap it around the spool. "Well done. Next, you'll want to rewind this onto the spool, because you're not going to want to stop your weaving to untangle a knot, and leaving a knot in the thread could easily mar your pattern or accidentally change the meaning of what you're shaping. So, here, wrap the silk around this spool -- you don't have to be fancy with it or terribly precise or anything. Just get it tucked into place where it will stay while you work."

A few minutes of focus saw Roueneil holding a lumpy but relatively practical spool of spidersilk. "Why not add the oil before you put the thread on spools? Why not just have the spidersilk already anointed, in your travel case?"

"That's a good question," Luc said. "I'm glad you asked. The oil dries, and it loses some of its potency as it does – you've got about twelve hours before the potency of that spool starts to fade. So it's not really practical to carry spools of ready-to-weave silk around." He propped his chin on his hand. "And, too, the oil and the rewrapping, that's a part of the process. It's meditative, it gives you some time to clear your mind and focus it on your work. That way, you begin the weaving with a steady focus, in tune with the Darkness."

Roueneil nodded. "So now I begin?"

"Now you begin.”

 


	22. Chapter 22

Slide fingers across the frame, tie one knot, simple, pull the thread taut, shift it along the other side until the angle is correct, it must be just this way and no other, tie the second knot. It is not so very difficult. A deep breath to bring the mind into the waiting receptivity, blank slate patience. She plans to weave a web to attract and hold light within it, to cast back illumination as a witchflame or candle might. So she calls up in her mind the warmth of an afternoon in late summer on the beach, sunlight like an open fire near her skin, the dazzle on the water like diamonds strewn on the waves, the glare of sun on white sand, light doubled and tripled as it greets its own reflection. She recalls turning up the oil lamps in the temple kitchen in the evening as twilight fades, shadows shrinking away into corners before the indomitable clarity of light. She brings to mind the clear brilliance of early morning, where the dew has evaporated and the clouds have not yet set in, when everything is bright and distance is no issue and the very air seems to shine. And -- heat rises in her cheek -- she remembers the light calling out richer shades of colors in Luc's eyes, cherry and mahogany and, when he is amused, a touch of copper.

The weaving is easier than she expected, and more difficult. Hold your mind on one thought, on your desire for that thought, and let your hands move. But if she fumbles and has to catch herself, how can she replicate a movement she never intended to make? It's almost impossible to correct a slip of the fingers if you don't know what the correct movement would have been. It takes a few clumsy knots before she gets the hang of moving without intention, of going far enough into her reverie of light to call it to her with every breath and every heartbeat but not losing herself too much to be able to use her fingers. She loses track of how long she stands there, slightly stooped over the table, tying knots and bisecting angles and tightening the spaces between the threads. Her eyes are half open and unfocused, and she does not notice the motes of white and gold flying between her fingers, nestling into the silk and knots. In the end, she brings the spidersilk back around to its starting point, closing the web with a knot that loops around the first one she had tied.

 

Roueneil collapsed bonelessly into the chair. Outside, the sun neared setting, a ruddy cast to the warm glow. _ I cannot have been working more than a few hours, but I feel as if I have been running back and forth all day long. _ She kept her eyes away from the web, afraid to look at it and see that she had somehow messed it up, as she stretched, popped her back, and flexed her hands. Eventually, she ran out of distractions and turned toward the table. She gasped in delight, clasping her hands before her.

Footsteps sounded just outside the doorway, and Luc entered. "How goes the weaving?" he asked. Then he caught sight of the table. Roueneil's web shone like sunlight and summer, like noon day sun and dawn and the morning star all at once. A broad smile split Luc's face, and he clapped his hands impulsively. "This is fantastic! Look how we'll you've done!" She began to smile at his words, and he leapt forward to hug her, then released her just as quickly. "The first time I tried to draw light in a tangled web, I got a mass of threads that flickered like a candle in a drafty room for two hours and then fell apart. You've completely blown past my performance, by far and away; I'm so proud of you!"

Roueneil beamed, and dimples appeared in her cheeks. "It was difficult at first; I had trouble holding my concentration and keeping my fingers working at the same time. But I think I got the hang of it eventually."

"You very clearly did. Congratulations!" He gripped her shoulders tightly again for a moment. "Now, come and see something very interesting." He stood next to her, making sure she could see the frame. Then he unbound the corners connecting fate to self and self to choices and slid the 'self' side of the frame out of all the loops of the web held onto it. Roueneil made an inarticulate sound of protest that she quickly stifled. Luc shushed her reassuringly. "No, look, see, it's still holding together, and it's still just as bright. Trust me, this is going to be fun for you." He continued carefully disassembling the frame and sliding each arm of it out of the web. He handled the threads delicatedly when he had to touch them, and at last all that was left was the web itself, lying in the center of the table, still glowing as if aflame from within. "See, Roueneil, since the threads are not broken or untied or pulled apart, the web maintains its integrity and continues to function. You wouldn't want to do this to a vision web until you were ready to dispose of it in a fire, because you would distort the shape and thus the vision. But for our purposes, this is going to be even better once it's off the frame. Hold tight."

He left the room, returning almost immediately with a hollow glass ball and several metal pieces in his hand. "Here, take a look." He tossed the glass ball underhand to Roueneil, who caught it reflexively. One end of the ball had a round opening with a slightly raised lip around it, and the whole was very light. She examined it, then handed it back to him. He gestured her toward the web. "Pick this up, and set it inside the globe."

"Okay," she responded with a trace of skepticism. The web felt warm and soft in her hands, and she poured it carefully into his glass globe.

He set the globe gently on the table and capped it with one of the metal pieces, which had a loop in the top and sealed the entire opening. Two curved metal pieces snapped together around the sides, one slightly on top of the other. When Luc held the assembled sphere, he could slide one side piece to conceal or emit light -- it formed a cozy, portable lamp roughly the size of his hand.

"Go ahead, test it out," he said as he handed the round lamp to Roueneil.

She tested the weight of it, passing it from one hand to another and holding it by the loop on the top. The side panel let her conceal the light entirely or allow out only a narrow beam -- or open an entire half of it to light the entire room, the brightness increased in reflecting off the other metal piece at the 'back' of the lamp. "It is so bright, and not heavy at all," she remarked as she fiddled with it. "Is this why you wanted me to start with light?"

"Well, sort of," Luc answered. "I wanted you to start with drawing light to your web because everyone who has vision has strong memories of light, which makes it easier to conceive of light and to call it to you. Light is also fairly biddable and quantifiable: it's either here or it isn't, unlike, say, luck or a nebulous idea like good weather, and there's not a lot of ways it can go wrong. Worst case scenario, the light isn't there or just goes out. I don't know how long yours will last, if you were planning on asking. But yes, these lamps are useful on their own merits, too. It's a win-win situation for us, really; you get a safe and reliable test, and we get these incredibly useful lamps. They're easy to carry, and they don't take up much space."

"Why do you need lamps like this at all, though? We can use Craft, and there's even fire or oil for the lamps like landens set up."

"Craft can make a light, yeah, but it can also alert anyone in the area -- or any sensitive alarm spells laid out in the area -- that someone is using Craft. A motion sensitive spell or even body warmth sensitive spell might not give someone a useful alert, but a spell that detects Craft will almost always go off when they really want it to go off, so people use them in sensitive areas and pay a lot more attention to them. A light like this, the Craft is already done, the lamp is assembled, and we can use the shutters to hide it when we don't need it. It's far safer than any of the alternatives we've been able to come up with, and we'll need as many as you feel like making over the next few days." He looked at her with cheer and optimism writ large across his face. "I know this first one was exhausting, but they do get easier -- if you want to keep working on them, that is." Luc rubbed a hand across his face and cupped his chin. "Right now, you and I are the only Black Widows in the camp, so we are the only ones who can do this. If you'd rather try something new for your next web, though, I can find you something else to try that would also be useful for us in this campaign. I hope you don't mind being confined to practical work for your first few lessons."

“Of course I do not mind,” she said, surprised he would even feel the need to apologize to her for teaching her. “If small mechanical lamps are what is needed, I would be happy to make more of them for you. I will try to make a second one, or perhaps even two, tomorrow.”

“Don't push yourself too hard,” Luc warned through the grin creasing his face. “Don't exhaust yourself. You aren't drawing directly on your Jewel for this kind of weaving, but it's still using the same channels in your mind that Craft does, and it can wear you out a surprising amount.”

“I noticed that tonight,” Roueneil confessed. “I promise I will pay close attention to how I am feeling after the first web, and I am sure Orischaen will as well.”

“That's likely very true,” Luc agreed with a chuckle. “I believe I'll have a chat with him tomorrow about what kinds of things to look out for, and then I can let you work with a clear conscience.”

Roueneil rolled her eyes with a wry smile. “I cannot imagine he would let me do anything foolish, no, so that should definitely make you feel better.”

 

_ Keep an eye on her today, if you will _ , Luc sent to Orischaen on his way out of the cottage the next morning.  _ It's fine for her to do another web, possibly even two, but she may not realize how exhausted she is after the first one. If she starts turning pale, especially around the mouth, or her legs start shaking, that's a sign that she needs to stop. Eating a meal or taking a break might help, but it might not. _

_ I know how to look after her and make sure she does not exhaust herself _ , the Arcerian cat answered with a hint of tartness in his mental voice.  _ I have been doing so for plenty of years without your instructions. _

Luc spread his hands in good natured surrender, then tipped the cat a casual salute.  _ You're quite right. Saya and I will be with Krou and Slein for most of the day, and Millie will be meeting us here around dinnertime. See you then. _

It took Roueneil longer than the previous day to set up the frame and oil and respool the spidersilk, but she was willing to take the extra time to make sure Luc wouldn't have to rescue her or fix any mistakes she caused by rushing through the steps. At last her materials were prepared, and she fell into the working trance that she had finally attained the day before.  _ I think it might be like dancing, _ she mused, _ where learning a step may take ages, getting the balance right and learning the timing, but once it clicks it is in your muscles. Practice ingrains it. So now, I have the pattern of it in my mind, and falling into that pattern will be easier each time, like learning the pirouettes when I was young. _

The first web shone with afternoon sunshine, rich and gold. It took her less time than the previous day's work, even with Orischaen sticking his nose over the table and snuffling her hands and butting against the backs of her legs. And afterward, when she carefully, painstakingly poured the web into one of the globes Luc had left for her, she strung it and her previous night's work on a bit of rope and hung them in the big downstairs room, shining almost unnoticeably in the bright light of day.

_ Are you going to eat now? A sandwich would be good. _ Orischaen nudged her hip. 

"Why are you so bossy today?" Roueneil asked aloud. "Yes, I will eat now; I need to fuel the light inside before I can ask my fingers to dance any more webs today. Are you hungry, is that why you're being pestersome?"

_ I am hungry, yes, but I will go find some frolicsome kind of thing on four feet. Luc asked me to keep an eye on you and make sure you do not exhaust yourself. You might not be aware of this, but your hair and your hands have been flickering with blue sparks the color of your Sapphire for the past turn of the glass, and I feel as though that is not a healthy symptom. _

"I shall eat, as I said, and then I will feel better," she declared. "And then I will make another web. I am thinking of making this one red, like Luc's Jewel.

_ You will make another web if I think you are rested enough, _ Orischaen insisted.  _ These lamps are a convenience, but they are not worth your health, and other people keep asking that I look after you, as if I have not already committed to doing so countless times. _

"And no one thinks I can look after myself," Roueneil grumbled as she assembled a sandwich and took her plate to one of the squishier armchairs.

Orischaen planted himself firmly in front of her and stared up into her eyes, his own golden eyes unblinking. _ And can you take care of yourself, truly, lady? _ he asked quietly.  _ Can you swear that you will always remember to eat, to rest, to tend to your own physical needs, when you are caught up in new Craft that sings through you in the Darkness's own voice? Can you tell me that you would not dance yourself to exhaustion and then get back up to try and dance some more? Can you tell me that you would not burn through every drop of power in your body and your Jewels and accidentally break yourself and lose your ability to... _ his mental voice stumbled,  threaded through with uncertainty, _ to access the abyss or at least if you were a normal person you would. But can you be sure you'd never hurt yourself if I weren't keeping an eye on you? _

Her eyes shimmered briefly, and she blinked hard. "I try to take care of myself; I do not do things to hurt myself or wear myself out or anything on purpose. I have not accidentally worn blisters into my feet or gone days without eating or fainted from dancing too long or running too far in years and years. Will I never be reassuring enough?" Her voice quavered.

Rumbling in distress, Orischaen twined around her legs and mouthed at her hand.  _ Please do not take this as a judgment against you or a condemnation. It's not that I don't trust you -- I do trust you, dearheart, with everything I am. But I have seen how sometimes the Darkness is too loud in your ear for you to pay proper attention to what is happening to your body. I want to help you, by paying attention when you cannot, and I want to ensure that you are never hurt if I can stop it. Can you understand how precious you are to me, and how I never want to contemplate being without you? _

She gave him a watery smile. "I suppose I can. Please try to have some faith in me, though. You and Luc and Saya -- you talk about me as a figure from myth, as a person who must be respected, maybe even obeyed in some sense some day, though I think I do not like that idea terribly much. You have to trust me with my own body, too, if you want to to trust me with so much else."

_ That is fair, Roueneil, and I will do my best to try and do as you ask. Please also be patient with me, and with the others around you, and remember that I at least have seen you inflict damage on your own body that you would almost certainly not inflict on anyone else's. _

Roueneil set the sandwich on the table and dropped to her knees so she could wrap her arms around the cat in his entirety. He rested his head on her shoulder and purred.

 

The third web came even easier, Roueneil's mind falling easily into the split calling-relaxing functions, calling light to the web taking shape beneath her fingers while relaxing into the Darkness to let it guide her movements. She thought of late sunset and of stormy dawns, the sun large at the horizon and red as a nectarine. She called to cranberries and pomegranates, and she called a blush to her own cheek recalling the smile on Luc's face at her previous success and wove that in, too. Before the sun had begun to set, she settled this web carefully into another glass globe and hung it on the rope with the others.

"See there, silly cat?" she teased Orischaen, tugging lightly on the tip of his ears. He flicked his ears back against his head and batted at her hand, rolling onto his back to swat up at her. "Two webs finished today, two lamps made, and not a bit of exhaustion dimming the music my Jewel hums. Proud of me?"

_ I am, of course. You should be proud of yourself, because learning your limits -- in practice as well as in theory -- is key to actually being able to use the power you can access.  _

"I can use my Jewel," Roueneil protested, confused. "And I can use Craft."

_ Obviously _ , he replied, his voice dry.  _ But to put power into use requires learning its limits and learning discipline in its application, and that is one of the things you are learning with this weaving. _

"I am glad to hear that you think I am making good progress," Roueneil dimpled at him. She was scratching his chin while he closed his eyes in happiness when the door opened and Saya and Luc walked in with Millie.

"Heyo, little bird," Saya began to call out, before his voice was drowned beneath Luc and Millie's exclamations over the string of round lamps.

"Roueneil, come in here!" Luc waved her toward them as Millie cupped the red lamp, sliding the shutter open and closing it again, which tinted the light in the room red briefly.

"This is remarkable," Millie said, turning toward to Roueneil. "I've never seen anyone turn the light a particular color before. And you say this is the first time you've woven a tangled web for this purpose?"

"Actually," Roueneil's voice was quiet and dreamy, "this is the first time I have woven a tangled web for any purpose. Mama had started teaching me the Hourglass's Craft before I came here, but Luc showed me yesterday how to weave a tangled web, and today I have been practicing."

"To go from learning to innovating in a single day is a considerable gift," Millie said warmly. "And I'm encouraged to see your skills at such a level, because of the plans we're about to lay." She moved to take a seat and beckoned the others with her. "I don't know any soft way to say this, my boys -- and Roueneil," she added with a smile, "but when we move into Apre, I need you to get Ankira herself. Krou and Slein will also be aiming for her, heading for the court itself, but I don't know if all of you will make it. I don't know if any of you will, to be honest." Her face was solemn, lacking its usual smile. "But you are our strongest warriors. Isseia and Aran will be trying to disable as many members of the Guard as they can. Leya will be rousing the temples, and she and Etianne will be trying to support any of Apre's citizens who find their courage and join our fight. There probably won't be many, but there may be a few, and they'll also be trying to protect any who aren't fighting. We don't want the city burned to the ground."

Saya harrumphed an agreement. "So y'plan to have th'five of us charge into the court and launch ourselves at the Queen and those closest to her? Th'Queen who's not allowed to go anywhere unattended and will sure as shit be holed up in her stronghold with those most likely to kill anyone who attacks her?"

Millie crossed her legs and met his eyes squarely. "Yes. Because she will never come out of that place, so we must find a way to take her while she is in it."

"Any ideas about what that way might be?" Luc asked, examining his nails. Orischaen huffed out a quiet breath.

"I was hoping you might have some ideas," Millie admitted readily, spreading her hands. "Here's what I've got as far as information. The castle is an old manor house, nothing terribly fancy, with three floors and a basement wine cellar. The third floor opens onto the roof, and a couple of our girls have confirmed that members of the Guard sleep in those rooms. The entire first floor is public areas or reserved for the business of the court--"

"--So Ankira's rooms must be on the second floor," Luc finished. "But there's no way she doesn't have direct access from her chambers to her garden. Not with all the stories about it."

Millie considered it, but Saya answered first. "Interior stairs, yeh? One o' them twisty sets inside a closet or something what runs from her room straight down to the entrance to her garden." Nods. Saya looked at Luc, then at Millie. "So?"

"So what?" Luc asked.

Saya sighed in exasperation and flapped a hand at him. "So is there a way into the garden where we can use the stairs and surprise her, you Darkness-blessed moon-eyed idjit!"

Luc's mouth circumscribed a silent 'o' while Millie's shoulders shook with stifled laughter. Roueneil buried her face in Orischaen's fur, her large dark eyes peeking over his shoulder.

"Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything about ways into or out of the garden, other than 'there aren't any'," Millie said apologetically. "Perhaps when we're there, when you all and Krou and Slein have a chance to examine it in person, you'll find something we've overlooked."

"Here's hoping," Luc said. "Otherwise, I think we might all be royally screwed."

No one had any good response to that.

 


	23. Chapter 23

The buildings in Apre clustered together, but the open avenues and broad paths between them lent a sense of space. Roueneil peered at the buildings from beneath her hood and marveled at their layouts. Several stories tall, the buildings were built around small, shared courtyards onto which their back doors opened. Sober brick and stone made up dark facades, but windowsills, doorframes, and trims were painted more cheerful colors: sunny yellow, sky blue, a dusky rose. The splashes of colors broke up what could otherwise have been monotonous or oppressive.

Roueneil walked beside the small covered handcart Saya had been pulling since they dropped from the Opal Wind outside of town. She wore a long, hooded cloak that hid all of her features save for her slender hands, which flashed with her movements as she braided another piece of jewelry. Occasionally a quick smile would flicker across her face and she would dart a glance at the hand cart: Orischaen had been informed in no uncertain terms that his appearance was far too noticeable and had been summarily banished to the cart until they were settled. Despite the walk not taking very long, he had grumbled nearly the entire time and was, in fact, still grumbling.

_ It's undignified, a creature like myself, a hunter, a silent predator never seen by his chosen prey until it is too late for them to escape, being consigned to this bumpy contraption as if I'm nothing more than baggage. _

Currently, Roueneil was the only one who could hear his litany of complaints. Saya had caught the first few seconds and threatened to turn the huge cat into as many pairs of boots as he could and sell the ones he wasn't stomping around in himself. Orischaen had pinned his ears and said he'd like to see the Warlord Prince try. Luc and Roueneil had separated them and given them each a lecture on playing nicely with others.

Luc and Saya had had to take more drastic measure to hide their appearances. Three hooded figures entering the city together would look like trouble waiting to happen, and no one knew what Roueneil looked like, anyway, so she was the reasonable choice to take a risk on a gust of wind blowing her hood back. All of Saya's hair was currently coated in an ash-based dye that made it look dingy brown starting to gray and pulled up under a misshapen hat. When combined with a gnarled stick he'd picked up from the side of the road and a stooped posture, the overall impression was one of grimy age. His Jewels were hidden, which was the riskiest part of the disguise. Anyone who got close enough to see his face would certainly be able to sense his psychic caste. Any member of the Blood would be unlikely to travel through unknown territory without wearing the Jewels that were a reservoir of power, but for a Warlord Prince to do so was unthinkable. That caste was known for their need to control their environments and protect those with them; not having a source of power ready to hand would drive one of them near-crazy with worry. The hope was that no one would get close enough to be able to tell that he wasn't wearing his Jewels.

Luc's dark skin would stand out no matter what, so he had gone a more outrageous route. His head was covered with a scarf wrapped and draped suggestively, leaving his eyes bare above the sheer golden silk. He wore a tailored woman's jacket in autumn shades of gold and russet over slim fitting black trousers and a wisp of a black undershirt. A carefully woven tangled web laid into the inside of the jacket lent just enough femininity to his image to fool the eye, and his psychic scent marked him as a Black Widow. Ideally, no one would inspect them closely, and he would pass as a companion -- perhaps expensive, perhaps paid hourly -- to the old man pulling his cart and the servant or grandchild who accompanied him. They were not an unremarkable group, but as long as they looked nothing like themselves, that would see them safely into the city and established.

Fortunately, the Guard seemed occupied elsewhere. They passed several small knots of two or three Guardsmen on their way to the address Millie had given them. She and the twins had arrived the day before to secure the building and begin laying the basic security spells into the walls and windows.

"I think we take the next turn," Luc said to his companions.

A choked shout drew their eyes to the next street over. Saya's lips tightened into a bloodless line as they looked over. Two Guardsmen held a woman between them as a third strapped her ankles to two sturdy posts in a small grassy space. Roueneil's hands clenched into fists.

"This is the kind of thing we're here to stop," Luc murmured as quietly as he could. "We can't stop and fight this battle now or we jeopardize the larger battle to come--"

_ Stop _ , Orischaen ordered.  _ Stop, turn around, STOP HER. _

In a panic, both men spun, Saya dropping the handles to the cart. Roueneil stood several yards behind them, glued to the spot, staring at the three Guardsmen. Saya hurried toward her, gesturing Luc to stay with the cart (and the gigantic cat).

"C'mon lady, we can't let someone see you out here before we even get things started." He caught one of her hands in his and tried to tug her away.

She refused to move. When he tugged again, she turned to look at him, and he dropped her hand with a bitten off curse. Her eyes were radiant cerulean, a blue incomparable to sky or sea or flower because it was too bright to occur in any natural thing he'd ever seen. She turned back to the Guardsmen, and her eyes narrowed.

"Roueneil, we can't take 'em in a straight fight here in the city; there's too many of 'em and we'll be cut down afore we make it another block." He knew he was babbling; desperately, he gave her more words. "Luc and th' cat, they'll end up dead beside us and th' people here'll stay just this trapped 'n' tortured." She showed no signs of hearing him. "Witch," he hissed frantically.

She held up one hand in a gesture of dreadful finality. Despairing, he fell silent.  _ She's gonna get us caught and killed afore we even start this fight, and it'll all be for naught acos Luc and I thought we should bring a big-eyed slip of a thing with too much power and not enough sense along with us. _

Her lips parted, and she blew a silent whistle at the Guards. The grass around their feet blew in a wind that seemed to touch nothing else, and then the earth rippled along the same path. All three Guards plummeted straight down, falling into the earth between one breath and the next. And that was it. The holes were gone; the ripples in the earth closed up in their own wake. The woman fell awkwardly onto one hip, and terrified onlookers gaped at the scene. A moment of frozen silence passed, then a second where no one knew what to do, and then everyone bolted, trying to get as far away as possible before the other Guards came looking for their fellows.

Roueneil lowered her hand and met Saya's eyes again. "I reminded the ground of the dance," she said simply. Her lips curved in a sweet, deadly smile, and she walked toward Luc. Saya stared back at the bare ground, then after her, shaken. The Blood had no law against murder, but this kind of indirect, no quarter given attack was, was--

\-- _ was what you should expect from a Black Widow who dwells in the abyss _ , one part of his mind commented. On the whole, he agreed with it, and a bloodthirsty grin creased his face. It was good to have worthy comrades.

 

The house Millie, Isseia, and Aran had secured was three stories tall but very narrow. The house to the right was currently empty, and Krou and Slein were to try and obtain lodging there when they arrived within the next couple of days. Saya and Luc carried the four bags they had brought upstairs, while Roueneil stowed the empty cart in the small courtyard their house shared with three others. She and Orischaen entered through the back door to join the conversation taking place in the ample bottom floor meeting room.

“We might as well take tonight to settle in,” Millie was insisting. Isseia leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, while Aran stretched across a sofa beside her. “Trying to launch an attack right after we've arrived will just make us vulnerable.”

“There are middle grounds between launching an attack and just hanging out here all night,” Luc insisted, his hand chopping at the air. “I could stay here with you and set up the spells and webs we need to make the house safe while Saya and Aran go scouting through the city and see how close they can get to Ankira's mansion.”

Millie drew breath to object, looked at Aran's studiously neutral face, and huffed that breath out. “Are you getting antsy cooped up here, boyo?”

Aran's lips twisted wryly. “Not antsy, precisely. But Luc isn't wrong, and we could likely be making good progress tonight as regards gathering information and setting up plans for the next day or so.”

Isseia tipped her head toward her twin in acknowledgment, though she did not look away from Millie.

“Fine,” Millie huffed, throwing her hands up. “Let's try and scope out the town tonight. Luc, I'll need you here for concealment and spy webs. Roueneil, you can stay here with us and work on learning new webs, or you can go with the skulking brutes.”

Roueneil sent a psychic thread to Orischaen.  _ Can I go without you? We cannot really skulk with you, so do you want me to stay here or can I go with them by myself? _

Orischaen shifted from paw to paw restlessly.  _ I suppose I must let you go, if you wish to. Saya will be there, and I trust him to care for you even if I do not know this Aran as well as I could. _

She smiled cheerfully at him.  _ I will be careful and do everything Prince Saya says. Do not worry a whisker about us. _

_ Now I am certain to be beside myself with anxiety, _ the cat sent back dryly. 

“I would like to go with Saya and Aran please,” she piped up. “If that is acceptable to everyone else.”

Saya studied her a moment, then nodded. “Y'know yer welcome with me. Prob'ly won't need the hood though; we'll have Luc be useful and whip us up a couple of solid illusion spells afore we go, won't we?” He directed that last at Luc, who flapped a hand in his direction in acknowledgment.

“It'll take me a bit to get anything actually worthwhile put together, but I've got a couple of notice-me-not webs already laid out and stored if you'll let me unpack then and tune them for you all. That should at least keep people's eyes off of you, although I suppose sufficient suspicion could motivate someone to focus on you enough to see past them.”

Luc found the webs and stitched them quickly into each person's clothes. Protected from casual detection, they set out from their new home like any other group of friends out for an evening stroll. They quickly discovered, however, that Apre did not currently boast much of a social scene. Very few people walked the streets; those who did hurried from one place to the next, in a rush to tend to necessary errands and get back behind the safety of their own doors.

“It's a doomed safety, though,” Aran whispered just loudly enough for Saya and Roueneil to hear. “They think being out of sight of the Guards will protect them, but really they're only safe until Ankira gets it into her head to hurt them. And she definitely will.”

Saya grunted agreement. “Matter of time.” He jerked his chin toward the mansion, visible over the roofs of surrounding houses. “That way?”

“That way,” Aran agreed. “Look for parks, trees, vantage points, empty buildings--”

“I think half the buildings we've passed are empty,” Roueneil interjected.

Aran gave her a nod of acknowledgment. “--and choke points. We need to know not only where we can get in but also where traps might get set.”

_ Not sure we should be conducting that kind of assessment out loud _ , Saya sent to them both.  _ Seems like th' kind of thing gets people arrested and beat and tied to those whipping posts. _

_ Good call, Prince _ , Aran agreed. "Look at how many of these houses and buildings have balconies. Do you see outdoor ladders or stairs?"

Roueneil nodded. "Outside steps on the corners of buildings, look, like that spiral. And drop down ladders you jump for. Must be so they can use the outside seats in sunny outside weather instead of having to go inside all stifling and then back out."

_ That'd make it easy to evade pursuit, provided you could get a little bit of a headstart, not to mention easy to plot an ambush. We should make sure and let Leya know; you know how she feels about getting to use long-range Craft. _

_ Tell Millie afore you forget _ , Saya suggested.  _ Y'know she's better at remembering that kinda thing than you are. _

A few seconds later, Millie's warm mental presence brushed all three of them wordlessly, then withdrew.

 

The mansion was set back from the broad avenue. Its walls were a pale beige, either heavily painted brick or some kind of stone. Broad windows sparkled with light, but each was so covered with shields and spells that attempting to see it through it was a lost cause. The roof was flat and surrounded with a swooping balustrade; Saya assumed there were stairs set into the roof for access to the third floor. No outside spiral stairs or drop down ladders here, though. Although the building itself was old-fashioned and graceful, security was an obvious concern. Several trees spread sheltering branches over the house and the surrounding grounds. A tightly woven fence blocked much of the view of the front yard, rising several feet above Saya's head and topped with curls of wire that glinted razor sharp in the fading sunlight. At the corners of the yard, the metal fence gave way to what would have been stately brick walls, had they not been topped with the same deadly wire. As it was, the brick served only to emphasize the harshness of the fence, contrasting elegance and murderous violence. The end result, they concluded, was that there was almost no way into the garden that certainly had to lay somewhere within that wall save for some intense use of Craft which would certainly be noticed.

_ What about trying to map out the layout of the floors _ , Aran suggested silently.

_ Dunno how much of that we can feasibly do _ , Saya commented,  _ on account of how all the windows basically look alike. _

_ Do not _ , Roueneil sent, surprised.  _ Curtains inside some, curtain rods, people moving. And that one -- three in from the left, second floor -- that one leaks anguish and hatred like briars twisted to grow inward and shred instead of growing outward to defend.  _

"That's probably the Consort's room, then," Aran said after giving her a speculative look. "He's gotta be the only one in that house that hates himself for what he does."

_ His room's gotta connect to Ankira's, so if that window's his, her chambers are just about certain on that same hall, so we should get into the garden along that wall.  _

_ Good plan. _

Roueneil tilted her head and stared consideringly at the wall around the garden. "The plants inside here are extremely happy," she said dreamily.

Both men turned to stared at her. "Please explain," Saya finally said, exerting effort to articulate his words clearly.

"The plants are humming bee songs and soft rain songs and friendly voice songs. Someone lives here who loves them, and they love her back. They say she is shimmers and afternoon rainbows and she walks with gentle feet. All the earth on that side glows with power threaded through it like thin streams of Green."

"Well, it's not as though she's got a talented gardener--" Aran began before Saya interrupted him.

"Green?" He stared intently into Roueneil's eyes. "It's Green power run all through th' earth where th' plant critters are all cheerful and whatnot?"

Confused, Roueneil nodded. "It's right there if you reach for it, though you have to sort of squint to see it through the shields--"

"It's Ankira's," he cut her off brusquely. When she flinched back, a tiny frown on her face, he gestured in negation. "Sorry, little bird, not grumpful at you. That's Ankira's personal garden; it's Ankira's power. Gotta be." He looked back at the wall. "This is where we'll go in."

 

That night, Luc and Millie made the house as safe as they could manage in a few short hours. Millie left tracks of Rose power on the inside of each window and door, along the underside of the roof, and dusted lightly out past the entrance and front stoop. Her spells would alert her if anyone stopped too long in front of any of their entrances, tried to force them open, or in any way violated the structural integrity of the house. Her knowledge and awareness had served the rebels well in protecting their camp, and a twist of her power had given her this peculiar gift of awareness of the people in her space ever since she first began using Craft. Luc brought the training of the Hourglass to bear. Full tangled webs could take anywhere from an hour to most of a day to create, but the groundwork could be laid to set up the basic protections. A few foundational strands masked the windows as part of the walls. A couple of basic illusions tied to the curtains kept anyone from being able to see in, either physically or with Craft. Sound dampening spells draped on all of the walls and hung along the roof ensured no neighbors or random passers by would overhear (or deliberately hear) their conversations. Odds were good they would only be here for a few days, but it could be several weeks, so better safe than sorry. Orischaen walked every inch of the house, twice, then curled up on the living room floor and, to all appearances, went to sleep.

 

The next day began with Leya checking in to let Millie know she had settled in at the temple nearest Ankira's mansion. Even her psychic voice was cheerful, and Millie made sure to pass on the information about outdoor access to the balconies. Leya grew even more cheerful, bordering on psychotic. Luc wondered blearily if the woman ever stopped smiling. He had been working, laying muffling and illusion spells over every inch of the walls, floor, and roof, nearly all night. Millie shuffled out of bed to set coffee percolating; Isseia grumbled out through the living room behind her and flung herself into the shower. Etianne's psychic contact came just as the coffee was ready; she had found the other Healers far more prepared than they had expected, so they were essentially ready to move as soon as anything happened. The mood, she relayed, was grim: one of the senior Healers had had a younger brother arrested on the street and tied up for public punishment. The Guard who grabbed him had shouted something about disloyal comments, but his greedy leer and the enthusiasm with which he cut the youth's pants off had given away the true motive for his actions. The boy had staggered to the House of Healing when he was finally let free, and he now lay comatose. His body would likely survive, but his furious sister was reliant on the skills of the local Hourglass Coven to bring his mind back, if it were possible. The Healer was dry-eyed and out for blood. Etianne confided that if the rebels did not strike soon, they would be riding her coattails – or finding her body bloody and broken outside that mansion.

“I don't like how tense the city is,” Aran admitted as they broke their fast together. “It was like walking through a tinderbox last night. Etianne's Healer isn't the only one about to snap; these people are right on the edge of sanity. The slightest spark could send the whole city ablaze.”

“Don't see as how that's a bad thing,” Saya said. “Extra chaos, extra chances fer us to get where we need to be without getting kilt to pieces.”

“Chaos means obstacles for us as well,” Isseia demurred. “It's not so easy to move through a city tearing itself apart, unscathed and unhindered. And we don't have the forces to protect ourselves from the entire city, especially if we're going to fight Ankira and her First Circle and the Guard at the end of it.”

Saya rolled one shoulder with a frustrated glare. “And what if her First Circle and most of the Guard are out in the street keeping the city not burned down? Might make it a tad easier fer us to get into her house.”

“The question then is what would be sure to draw them out,” Isseia said firmly. “Because what we'll need is a specific diversion to keep them busy, not rampant chaos tearing the city apart around us.”

_ Millie, I need you or Luc to come open this door so we don't blow ourselves to bits trying to knock, _ a good-natured psychic voice interrupted. With an exasperated grin, Millie skipped out of her seat to unlatch the front door and let Krou and Slein in to join the discussion.

Saya had both hands planted on the table, leaning forward. Luc, on the other hand, had taken an entire platter of sausages and draped himself across the couch to eat them with single-minded intensity. “'elcm,” he mumbled around a mouthful of food.

“Good to see you too,” Slein laughed. “Been learning manners from your barbarian?”

Luc threw a sausage at him.

Saya pointed a finger at him emphatically and shook it with each statement. “The city is poised on a knife edge, waiting for any shock or ruckus or general bad manners t' set things off. And this is somehow a cause fer concern instead of celebration!”

Slein nibbled the sausage, traded a glance back over his shoulder with Krou, and eyed Saya. “How bad is it out there? We came straight in as quickly as we could, didn't really take time to look around or get a feel for the place.”

“It's bad,” Aran said. “I don't know if it's quite to powder keg bad, but it's close. If we're here longer than a week, I'll be shocked speechless.” Isseia snorted, then winced when he kicked her under the table. “Honestly, I think we should plan to move on them tomorrow. The day after at the latest. Otherwise I think we'll lose all control of the timing and get swept up when the city implodes.”

Silence fell as the group considered this. "I can't say you're wrong," Isseia finally said. Millie nodded. From the couch, Luc grunted an agreement that contained no vowels and too much sausage. "I think we can be ready by tomorrow."  _ Etianne _ , she sent on a psychic thread the entire group could hear.  _ Will the Healers be ready to move at, say, noon tomorrow? And do you think you can keep that hothead contained until then? _

_ I'm sure we can at least lock her in a closet until then. And these Healers are ready to move now. Believe me, you do not know anger until you have a Healer roused to use all that intimate knowledge of the human body against you. The location of every major bundle of nerves, for instance, or exactly where to yank on a tendon to render a person immobile and in excruciating pain. Yes, they're ready to move. _

_ Thanks. _ Isseia closed the link down, pale and slightly sweaty. "Anyone else a little queasy suddenly?" Millie and the men also looked like they were reconsidering the wisdom of having eaten breakfast already. Roueneil, on the other hand, looked the very picture of health. Before she could ask if there was a reason everyone else seemed a touch sick, Millie opened a psychic thread to Leya.

_ How is the temple, Leya? Will you be ready by, say, tomorrow at noon? I don't think we can afford to wait much longer than that with the city as volatile as it is. _

_ The temple is just as nervy as the rest of the city. We've had Priests and Priestesses out mapping routes through the city today though, including the places where you can jump from street to balcony or roof. By this evening, we should be able to get anywhere in the city on any level. So tomorrow should be fine – we'll be calling in the Priests and Priestesses who are traveling and any guards the temple has ever contracted who are willing to come back and fight with us. Ankira is not well-liked anywhere in the surrounding areas, and I think many of the guards or mercenaries or even just travelers who have come through here in the recent past will come back to fight her Guards, even if they don't want to attack a Queen themselves.  _

Millie nodded even though Leya couldn't see her.  _ Good, alright. Keep an ear out then, and we'll let you know when we move. _

_ We'll be ready. _

"Today, then, we need to make ourselves ready," Millie told those assembled. "Gather supplies, walk the city – be safe if you do, meditate, make sure your Jewels are rested, whatever needs to be done. I know you all know how to handle yourselves. And everyone, think on what might get the Guard and ideally as much of the Court as possible sent out into the city to keep order." She stood. "I need to walk the city myself. Isseia, would you and Aran mind coming with me? Aran can show us what they discovered last night."

"That's fine with me," Isseia replied, also standing and stretching her arms above her head.

Krou arched an eyebrow at Slein. Roueneil realized with mild surprise that she still hadn't heard his voice;  _ perhaps he does all his communication through Slein?  _ she mused. _ I suppose they could make that work. Why bother though? _

Slein's voice interrupted her thoughts. "We're officially in the house next door. Millie, if you and Luc can key us to these wards and webs, we'll pop back in later after we've settled and done our own exploring. Maybe dinner together?"

"Aye," Saya nodded, "we'll need to compare notes and lay the plans fer tomorrow." He spun in his chair and poked Luc with one foot. "Napping, lazy? Or coming out for walkabouts?"

"Eurgh," Luc grumbled. "Napping. Meditating." He slit his eyes open to catch Roueneil's gaze. "Teaching you how to lay a simple illusion spell before tomorrow."

Roueneil blinked and nodded. "I would like to learn that."

 

 

Hours later, Millie was peeling potatoes in the kitchen while Isseia chopped vegetables and Aran ... supervised. Well, he leaned his chair back on two legs and chattered. Saya and Orischaen had mock-fought each other, matching weapons against sheer muscle mass, speed against speed. Roueneil was painting concealment stars of transparent oil onto the clothing everyone had chosen for the attack the next day. Luc ... supervised. Well, he lay stretched out across the sofa and corrected Roueneil when her lines wobbled. Her lines didn't wobble. Every once in a while he corrected her anyway. She used Craft to fly one single drop of oil over to drip on his nose.

The door slammed open. Krou staggered in, dark hair scraggling over his face and throat, eyes wild and glowing nearly the same deep blue as the Sapphire blazing around his neck. He swatted the door shut behind him, shaking the frame and most of the wall around it. The knife clattered out of Millie's hand. He raked both hands through his hair to pull it backward out of his face before raising his eyes to the assembled gazes. His voice sounded like ice scraping over gravel, raw with such fury that Roueneil closed her eyes against it.

"They've taken Slein."

 

 


	24. Chapter 24

“They've taken Slein.”

His words seemed to echo – no, not seemed to, Luc realized, they _were_ echoing, reverberating through the room. At least, he hoped it was only through this one room.

Krou stood where he had stopped, micro tremors shaking his body. Barely visible wisps of Sapphire power floated off of him like steam, vanishing a mere centimeter or so away from his skin. Tears spilled down Millie's face. For a long moment, no one moved.

Then Roueneil – and when had she moved? – laid her hand on the side of Krou's face. A blaze of royal blue light instantly sprang up around them both, causing everyone else to flinch away, blinking spots away from their vision. When they looked back, Krou had his arms tight around Roueneil, hugging her as if he was drowning. The back of her hand was covered with the same stark black swirls and points that made up the tattoos covering Krou's arms and neck. She lifted her head from his shoulder, met the assembled gazes dragging themselves out of pained shock.

“We are going to get him back.”

Across the room, Orischaen threw back his head and roared.

 

They burst into movement. Saya spun on one heel and bolted for his room and weapons. Luc inhaled the rest of the food he could lay hands on -- a double handful of cucumbers, a heel of bread. He closed his eyes and his Red Jewel shimmered; he strained to draw in as much power as he could hold, refilling his reserves. Darker Jewels and the power for which they were a conduit could burn up a person's body, exhausting physical resources in order to channel and control magical ones. Krou leaned back against the closed door, drawn tense as an overtuned violin string, Roueneil's hands tight on his wrists. His hands caught her forearms just as tightly. Isseia strapped knives to her wrists, calves, waist. Millie asked Krou, tears in her voice but only drying on her cheeks, "What happened?"

"One of the little parks by the main square. He asked what a woman was chained up for. The Guard said, she did not bow for the Queen when Ankira walked by, and Slein said he did not know that was necessary, and the Guard said he did not like Slein's tone, and Slein said he did not care." Krou closed his eyes, still shifting with bits of Sapphire light as if he were in danger of going up in ultramarine flames. "And he touched his side where he carries that bone-handled dirk, and the Guard noticed. They took him with Craft." His voice throbbed with barely leashed anger. "I could have fought them off, but I did not know how many more they might call, and I did not know if I could call you all quickly enough. So they took him from me, and into that mansion."

 _Etianne, Leya_ , they all heard Isseia send. _We need you. We need everyone. Forget tomorrow; we move tonight. We move now._ She hesitated, fighting for control. _They've taken Slein._

From Leya, a flash of frantic concern rapidly hardening to icy determination. From Etianne, white-hot bloodthirst. In unison, _We will be there._

Luc realized he was shivering. The house had dropped to near freezing temperatures; breath was frosting in the air. They stood gathered in the kitchen, armed to the teeth, Jewels out and in most cases glowing. Saya gestured toward Luc and Roueneil. "We take the mansion with Krou. Th' rest of ya, take the Guard to pieces." His jaw was set. "Kill 'em all if they get in the way."

Aran jerked his head in a sharp nod. "Set fires. The Court members don't live in the mansion, most of them – they live in the district to the west, with all the pretty parks and the big, spreading branches. It'll burn fast and draw attention, and hopefully they'll call the Guard out for help."

"That'll be on th' three of you t' accomplish, then." His eyes held Krou's in acute understanding. "We're going t' get Slein, and we're doing it now. Let's move."


	25. Chapter 25

The Priests and Priestesses poured out of the temple. Many of them went largely unarmed, though some carried daggers or throwing knives or, in the case of one extremely tall man, a blowgun and darts. But none of them went harmless. For one, the Blood are never harmless; they carry a predator's instincts honed with human cunning and channeled through the primal forces that manifest in their Jewels. For another, they carried their prayers. Prayers calling on the local spirits of ancient groves, the depths of the rivers, the warmth of the hearth fire. Prayers calling on patron deities of individuals, of craftsmen, of the city itself. Prayers calling on the Darkness as a whole. Auras of light and shadow and twisted figures played around these robed figures, and those who moved to challenge them went down in flames or strangled by vines or shredded by invisible claws.

They were not immune to attacks, however. A woman crowned with blonde braids faced a mounted man wearing the badge of the Guard. She gestured, and the ghostly wolf shape next to her let out a silent howl and charged -- but the Guard raised a hand, and a blast of Green power ripped through her, leaving a jagged, bloody hole the size of a grapefruit through her abdomen. The wolf winked out of existence as her Purple Dusk Jewels shimmered and puffed into dust. Behind her, tears streaming down his cheeks, a Priest raised his arms, and lightning struck the mounted Guard, leaving only a scorched mark on the pavement. Grim faced, the Priest moved onward through the city, seeking his next target.

Not far from the temple district, the House of Healing began to empty as its Healers took to the streets. Most of them found themselves immediately taking charge of patients, people lying in the shadow of doorframes or tucked against walls, aching, bleeding, crying out. Other Healers surveyed the rapidly spreading devastation and flung themselves toward the fray, tipping over an inner precipice as the instincts of "make it better" became "remove anyone who could do this". For a short time, the rebels and all those they could stir to join them, whether out of genuine conviction or determination to take advantage of the chaos, had near complete freedom in the streets. For a short time, Guards were found and taken down, torn to pieces by the mob. And then the tide began to shift. The Guard came boiling out of barracks and the mansion, taking to the streets en masse. Still others dropped from the Winds, summoned back to Apre by the orders of the Master of the Guard and the swelling consternation of their comrades. It changed from venting of anger and frustration and fear, a surprise attack on barely prepared oppressors, to an actual battle. Priestesses were killed or dragged off the street to be tortured or maimed. Healers trying to staunch the bleeding of wounded combatants were ridden down or slain outright. Guards began to unleash blasts of unfocused power down crowded streets, careless of who was hurt or killed.

Millie saw the death toll rising and hoped Krou, Saya, Luc, and their two new friends could end things quickly.

 

They headed for the mansion as quickly as they could. Chaos was already spreading through the streets and threatening to overwhelm them. A Guard and a Warlord they didn't recognize staggered into Luc, nearly knocking him over. Saya took the guard's head off with a single swipe of his sword, earning him a grateful salute from the Warlord before the other man ran off. Krou charged forward, heading toward Ankira's mansion as fast as he could. Luc wondered briefly if Krou would even notice if one of them fell in battle behind him, then dismissed that thought.  _ If it were Saya captured, I doubt I'd have even waited for everyone else to come with me. Who can fault him for his panic? _

 

The garden wall rose ahead of them, sheer and topped with glinting deadly wire. But the time for stealthy observation had passed.

"Roueneil, where is the ground the happiest? We need to get as close as we can to the door that Ankira usually uses," Luc said.

Roueneil closed her eyes, held the fingertips of one hand against the wall, and paced along it. A heartbeat passed, then two. Just as Krou began to tense up to charge through the wall wherever was most convenient, she stopped. "Here," she said. "Here, the plants are warm and cooing, even with the sun leaving them."

Luc nodded to Krou. "Out of the way then, Rou; we're taking it down." The two men raised their hands. Jewels flashed; Craft sizzled in the air like ozone in a thunderstorm. The wall shook but stood. Sapphire and Red sparks played along it in weird spiderweb cracked patterns, and it shook again. Orischaen growled, the hair rising along his back, and Green power poured into the mix as well. Sparks hissed off of each other, and the wall shook once, twice, then split, sharply, along one line like a cleavage point in a diamond. Orischaen padded forward on large, silent feet, then rose to his hind legs and slammed forward, throwing all his weight against the wall. It tumbled down in a pile of rubble, leaving an opening perhaps four feet wide. He leapt over the short remaining jagged rocks and landed in the garden.

The others followed him as quickly as they could move. The plants in the garden rippled in the wind of their movements -- at first. Then they kept rippling. A rosebush whipped across Saya's face, leaving thin scratches along his cheek and ear and tangling in his hair. As he yelped and flailed at it, other bushes began to uncurl more strongly, stirring although there was no breeze. Krou started to take a trip and stumbled; the grass had grown in a thick mat over his left foot and had shoots extending across his right. Luc and Roueneil found vines trying to wrap around their calves and thighs. They jerked away, snapping them, and found new ones reaching in again faster and thicker each time one broke. Only Orischaen could move unimpeded, and he prowled along the grass, lashing his tail in agitation.

_ Every time you tear away from them, they get more upset. Stay still just a minute, let me see– _

A low chuckle from the door in the mansion wall facing them froze them all where they stood. "Are you enjoying my garden, you incompetent piles of excrement?" Her voice was so light and sweet that it sounded like birdsong, and the vulgarity of her language took a second to fully sink in. A white gown hugged the plump curves of her figure where she leaned against the doorframe, frothing with lace at the hem below her knees. Thin straps showed off her pale shoulders and ample chest, while ribbons crisscrossed her thick ankles and calves before disappearing under her skirt. Tumbles of sun-streaked brown ringlets framed her heart-shaped face and warm brown eyes. Frivolously long eyelashes batted at them as she smiled, her mouth a charming cupid's-bow.

"The plants here do not take kindly to fucking assassins trying to plow their clumsy way into my home." She reached out to brush the side of a rose near her; it leaned into her caress like a pet. Orischaen crouched, having stopped moving when she began speaking. "So, failures trapped in place like flies in honey, what was your goal when you came here?" She advanced toward them a few dainty steps. "Were you here to kill me? I should think anyone trying to kill me would be even a tiny bit more prepared for this, you ignorant motherfuckers."

_ Krou _ , came Orischaen's psychic voice on a private thread.  _ I may only get one chance. Be ready. _

Another pace brought her within range, and Orischaen leapt silently toward her, his Green Jewel flashing as he moved. A crack of soundless thunder as he collided with her shield flung them both away from the group. Orischaen struck the ground and rolled violently into the stone wall, where he lay unmoving. Ankira slammed into the side of a fountain and went limp, her eyes unfocusing as her chest heaved for breath. With a shout, Krou tore himself free and sprinted for the door. As he did, he channeled Sapphire power through himself and into the ground, reaching to char roots, stems, leaves, anything growing or green. The plants holding the others writhed as if in agony. Some crisped into crackling blackness and fell away. Saya and Luc bolted for the door where Krou waited impatiently. Roueneil, however, took off running for Orischaen. She made it about three steps before his psychic command stopped her in her tracks.

_ You must be out of your mind to be running towards me instead of getting out here,  _ he shouted at her. _ Get inside and I will meet you when I do not have to worry about protecting you from her. _

 

Roueneil had barely reached the door when Ankira regained her feet. Shaking her head from side to side, it took her a heartbeat to focus on the damage dealt to her garden. She wailed as she touched the destroyed plants, falling to her knees again. Then she ground her teeth and looked after the three fleeing figures, rage transforming her doll-like features. "I will find you and I will  _ flay the flesh from your bones, _ " she howled after them. She yanked a thread of power and vanished from the garden.

Orischaen let the sight shield he had hastily erected go and got to his feet. He stumbled immediately and fell over. His right foreleg wouldn't hold his weight. With a grimace not unlike Ankira's, he used Craft to support most of his weight so that he could bobble into the mansion after the others.

 

Stairs to the right. They sprinted up them, bypassing the shouts and pounding footsteps on the first floor entirely, and emerged into a crowd of Guards charging toward the staircase. Roueneil froze for a split second before the music swelled inside her where it always played softly and her muscles moved out of old habit, running through pace pivot step turn pirouette dip turn turn step until she found herself on the other side, in empty space. And then she took in the blood soaking the ground, Saya's bloody sword, Luc's knives dripping red, and Krou's own weapons, a set of metal rings that slid onto his hand with narrow razor edged blades attached to it. Glints of Craft-enhanced strength played along the blades. The Guards lay in pieces. Roueneil began to shake, and then she saw the face of the woman they had watched Guards arrest just the day before. She heard Etianne's words again, speaking of the Guard who had attacked the Healer's brother:  _ his greedy leer ... the enthusiasm with which he cut the youth's pants off ... his body would likely survive ... reliant on the skills of the local Hourglass Coven to bring his mind back, if it were possible. _ And she sent her own ripple of Craft back through the dead bodies, draining and disintegrating every Jewel not already ash.

A sound from behind her spun her around on her toes, ready to flee or attack. It repeated, a repetitive scratching from behind a door further down the hall.

"We have to find Ankira," Saya rumbled.

"We have to find Slein," Krou growled.

Luc unwound a braided cord with a rough crystal tied to the end of it. "Krou, get over here." He looped the other end around Krou's finger, letting the crystal hang toward the floor. "Think of Slein. Most intense memories you have of him." Almost immediately, the crystal swung forward and to the right, hovering about thirty degrees off the ground. Luc shoved Krou forward along down the hall, away from the scratching sound, and beckoned to Saya and Roueneil to follow. Saya did. Roueneil hovered, looking back toward the door where she heard scratching. "Rou," Luc hissed. "We have to go."

She looked back again, then shook her head. "I have to know what it is. Something important is behind that. Go, I'll find you all later. And Orischaen is coming for me anyway." She made a shooing gesture at him -- "Go!" -- and scampered toward the door.

Krou vibrated in place with the need to be moving. Luc cast a despairing glance after Roueneil and followed the other two men down the hallway.

 

She eased the door open. The room was dark, but an adjoining door to another room let a thin crack of light in. A crumpled figure in the corner shifted, and that scratching sound came again. Roueneil crept in on soundless feet, shifting the metal encased round lamp attached to her belt until she could let out enough golden light to make the contents of the room visible. A low bed against the wall facing the adjoining door had a simple sheet over it and nothing else, not even a pillow. In the corner, a man knelt -- no, Roueneil saw, his wrists were cuffed to his ankles, trapping him in a crouched position. Both sets of cuffs were attached to a block of wood against which he was rubbing any parts of his body he could reach. Roueneil realized with a shock that parts of his chest and arms were raw and bleeding: he was rubbing the skin itself off. He shivered in spasmodic tremors that spread from his shoulders down his body, and other than the sound of his flesh against the wood, he was utterly silent.

"Hello?" Roueneil whispered. At the first sound of her voice, the man jerked sideways and nearly lost his balance. He shifted his weight to squint toward her and began rubbing the inside of his knee against the wood block. "Who are you? What's wrong?"

The scratching slowed, though it did not stop. He studied her as if waiting for her to do something else. She took a step toward him. He waited. She took another step and crouched down on his level. He sidled away from her and watched her. "Can you talk?" she asked.

His eyes cut toward the door.

"There's no one in there," she assured him, investigating with a quick probe of Craft. "No one can hear us."

"I can talk," he whispered slowly, each word falling reluctantly from his lips.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Willem," he said after a pause. "I thought everyone knew."

Willem? The name sounded familiar -- oh. The Consort. Ankira's Consort. Ankira's weapon. She shrank away without realizing it. His face steadied into a distant mask, tucking away the flash of hurt. Roueneil stopped moving.

"Do you ... you hurt people for her."

"I do." Willem's mouth tightened. "She makes me."

"How can I get you out?"

He blinked, and his mask shattered. "What?" He sounded shocked. "Why would you want to?"

It was her turn to blink. "Why would you want to stay?"

"I don't!" He modulated his voice quieter. "I would do anything to be free. But she keeps me in chains and with this Ring on me, I can't even access my Jewels or use Craft to fight her." Willem lowered one knee so that Roueneil could see the glint of metal around his penis.

“Oh,” she breathed. “How can you get it off?”

“Obviously I can't,” he snapped.

“If your hands were unchained?”

He shook his head. “Lady Ankira wears the Green, and I only wore Opal even before she put this on me. I would need someone who wears Sapphire or darker...” His voice trailed away as she lifted the chain from around her neck, displaying the dark blue Sapphire pendant. “Really?” he whispered, desperate hope washing out his voice.

She reached her hand out, and he twisted his knees as far out of the way as possible so that she could reach for the shining Ring. When her fingers brushed it, Green fire raced around it, but Sapphire light washed out from her fingers, and the Ring fell open with a soft clunk onto the carpet. Willem nearly dislocated his hip writhing away from it. Roueneil braced herself on one of his knees and grabbed the chain between his ankles, arresting his movements sharply. She yanked on the links between the cuffs, and they fell apart, glowing slightly on either side of the break. The chain between his wrists shattered with as little effort. He stood, but a twisting cramp drove him back to his knees. Roueneil helped him straighten up, unfastening her cloak to wrap around his shoulders. It fell to an awkward length if he cared how it looked, but the concealment signs written on it in oil made him almost impossible to see.

_ Orischaen _ , she called.  _ I need you, I found the Consort and we need to get him somewhere safe _ . 

_ I am on the stairs. Bring him to me, and I will make sure we all get back to the house in one piece _ . 

“Come on,” she whispered, wrapping one of his arms around her shoulders so that she could help him hobble down the hallway. “I have a friend who is going to help me take you somewhere safe.”

Willem gritted his teeth and moved as quickly as she could. “What if Lady Ankira comes back?”

Roueneil shook her head, strands of her hair brushing his cheek. “You are free of her now. She will never have you again.” She eased him onto the stairs, and they began their halting journey downward. Orischaen sat at the foot of the stairwell, one paw held off the ground. Willem whimpered and began shaking. “No, no,” she soothed. “That is my friend. Orischaen, say hello, this is Willem. We are rescuing him.”

Orischaen deliberately dipped his head in a kittenish gesture.  _ Hello, Prince Willem. I am Orischaen, and I am going to make sure you are safe. _

Willem was close enough to reach out and brush trembling fingers across Orischaen's head. The big cat ran a rough tongue across his fingertips. They walked the extra three steps outside and braced themselves for the rush across the deadly garden. But before they could move, a blast of Sapphire power gouged a hole into the ground in front of them.

They pressed into the doorway and frantically examined the area, trying to figure out where the bolt came from. “Top,” Willem gasped out, fighting down a full-blown panic attack by the barest edge of willpower. When Roueneil looked up, she saw three figures on the roof, one of whom was gathering Sapphire power into his fist for another attack. She shoved the others back just as the ground exploded again.

“That's Brom,” Willem forced out through chattering teeth. “Master of the Guard. Can fight, obviously.”

Roueneil worried at her lip.  _ Luc? Where are you? _

_Nearly to the roof. Lots of Guards on the third floor. I think Ankira's up there._

_She is, with her Master of the Guard. He wears Sapphire like me. Orischaen and I were rescuing the Consort and now we are pinned down in the stairs because he is attacking us from the roof._

Frantic concern.  _ Be careful! Stay under cover until we get up there and take him down. _

A hissing path of lightning burned Gray in front of them.  _ Luc, he has someone with him who wears Gray. What if you cannot handle them both? _

Luc didn't answer for a long moment.  _ We'll have to. _

Roueneil knelt down to put her head against Orischaen's. “You have taken such very good care of me, and you are my first and best friend,” she told him quietly. “I have to try something now to make sure we are all safe. And I should be fine but just in case I am not, I wanted you to know that.”

Orischaen made an unhappy sound deep in his chest, but he didn't try to stop her.

Roueneil closed her eyes and let herself fall.

 

Darkness swept her under. Lighter Jewel ranks flashed by, flickers in the depths, and she found herself standing-floating-hovering at the Sapphire. Deep blue energy ran around her and through her; she was glass, crystal, surrounded by light and radiating light. She opened her eyes, felt something else open within her.  _ I need them to be safe. Someone wears the Gray _ . She drifted downward, purposefully at first, then more hesitantly. The light, taste, swelling orchestral triumph rang out crimson and scarlet, color of peony petals or the blood spatters at the top of the stairs, violently,enthusiastically Red. And Red deepened to molten silver, a roiling thunderhead of Gray. It was hard to move. Her eardrums popped – what would have been her eardrums, had she been corporeal, would have popped. Pain began to flicker across her vision like cracks in the Darkness. A cliff edge before her, Gray plunged in a silent waterfall to a shadow a whisper away from black: the Ebon-Gray, the second darkest Jewel rank. She cupped two hands, bent, and filled them in the frothing darkness. She braced herself, and leapt.

 

Roueneil's body began to glow, first Sapphire, then Red, then a silvery gray the color of mist. Her hands rose to form a bowl, and the mist within them began to darken. It roiled with shadows until nearly all of the gray was gone, and her eyes popped open. Willem slid up another step away from her. Her eyes were unearthly, glowing electric blue from lid to lid, no pupil, no sclera. She stepped forward out the doorway and flung her hands toward the roof. Crackling dark fire expanded in a rush. A sheet of Gray force raced out to meet it. A cracking sound shivered through the building, but a thick bolt of Ebon-Gray fought through, and one of the three figures on the roof burst into instantaneous flames, roaring up in a pillar of fire.

Opposite the two remaining figures, three more struggled onto the roof. Flashes of Jeweled Craft began to be exchanged, but Ankira and Brom were distinctly outmatched by Krou and Luc, even without Saya's additional power. The duel continued for only a few minutes before one small figure was bisected at the waist and the other was forced off the roof.

Ankira struck the ground with a sickening crack.

 

Roueneil held herself up with both hands against the sides of the doorframe. She shook, part of her still in the abyss, falling, trying to catch its balance, and part of her trying to retain her physical balance and ability to breathe in the wake of the dark power that had just rushed through her body. Her Jewel burned against her chest. To descend beyond one's Jewel rank into the abyss risked breaking one's Jewels, losing one's connection to the abyss and the Darkness, being broken back to only basic Craft. All she could do was breathe and try to let the power settle back into its familiar patterns, hoping that it did not overwhelm her and burn out her Jewel in the process. She eased her way out of the building.

A hand on her shoulder startled her into a flinch, and her Jewel scorched against her skin. Willem hissed an apology and steadied her, helping her move toward the crumpled body on the ground. Orischaen moved up to her other side, bracing her. They saw Ankira's neck twisted hideously, one leg nearly torn off at the hip, an entire side of her ribcage dented inward. And they saw her eyelids flutter, her chest rise almost imperceptibly.

“She's still alive,” Willem said through gritted teeth. “Good. Let her suffer until her Jewels are exhausted.”

Roueneil shook her head – the movement almost made her collapse – and stretched out a hand. She reached for Sapphire power to shatter the other woman's Jewels and finish the kill, let her be gone at last, and slid through the Sapphire entirely, its bond to the abyss still roiling in turmoil. What raced from her fingers to Ankira's Jewels was power glowing ruby Red. Ankira's Purple Dusk and Green Jewels puffed to ash around her neck and in her tiara. Roueneil stared down at her hand, turned it over to examine her palm. With a soft thunk, an uncut Red Jewel fell into her hand from nowhere.

Footsteps behind them heralded the arrival of Saya and Luc, with Krou and Slein close behind them. “We need to get th' body,” Saya was saying when they came in view of Ankira's crumpled corpse. A moment of silence came and went, then he caught sight of what lay in Roueneil's hand. “What is _THAT_ ,” he roared.

Roueneil quirked a faint smile at him. “I think I just made the Offering to the Darkness,” she said, and fainted.

 


	26. Epilogue

Roueneil woke in a dimly lit room she recognized as Saya and Luc's in the house in Apre. Bright light shone through a slit in the curtains, but the heavy fabric blocked out nearly all of it. She stirred in bed, and Etianne popped through the door almost immediately.

“Whoa there, lie still; I think you're probably fine, but you should let me check first.” Etianne drew the curtains further open, brightening the room.

Recognizing the Healer's wisdom, Roueneil lay still while the other woman examined her physically and with Craft. She nodded to herself and took a seat beside the bed. “You're not in bad shape – a few bruises and scrapes physically, your Jewels almost drained but definitely fine in a day or so. If I had to guess, I'd say you probably got banged up worse than this and your body has been drawing on your Jewels to heal those wounds. Plus you're exhausted.” Her eyes sharpened. “Because you made the Offering to the Darkness in the span of a few moments, on a battlefield, during the day instead of over the course of hours, at a Dark Altar, in the middle of the night. There's no sense fussing at you, since you can't, thank the Darkness, do it again, but do you understand how foolish a risk that was?”

Caught mid-nod, Roueneil thrust her chin up stubbornly. “We were being attacked by one of Ankira's Guards who wore a Gray Jewel, and I did not know if we would all survive trying to fight him. So I reached for whatever I could, and the Darkness provided.”

“You stretched your mind and your inner self just about as far as possible without breaking, and frankly you should have broken,” Etianne responded bluntly. “Your intentions were good, but your intentions don't matter when you do something like that – it's a thrice damned miracle you can still wear the Jewels at all.”

“Apparently intentions do matter,” Roueneil retorted, “considering that I can.”

Etianne pursed her lips at that, then gave a reluctant laugh and shook her head. “Take it easy the next few days so you can get used to the Red and build your strength back up, and you'll be fine. Want to come out and join everyone else in the kitchen? There's stew for lunch; you slept clean through the rest of yesterday and most of this morning.”

“I'd like that, please. Is everyone else … how is everyone else?”

Etianne sobered again. “All of us lived. Millie is broken back to her Birthright Yellow; she drained the Rose trying to shield a couple of kids from a pair of Guards. Isseia couldn't get to them fast enough to keep her shields and the Rose from being broken, but she managed to save the kids. Aran's going to have a limp: his leg got pretty shattered, one of the First Circle Warlords had a mace. And Slein … Slein lost an eye and a couple of fingers.” She gestured helplessly with one hand. “But he'll live, and he's still functional, so it could have been worse. Saya and Luc came through it all just banged up, no permanent damage.”

Roueneil smiled, heartsick and relieved all at once. “What about Willem? Ankira's Consort?”

“He's … he's in much worse shape. He's at the House of Healing, and he'll be there a while.” She sketched a half bow toward Roueneil. “You did a great thing in rescuing him. It will just take a long time to start healing the damage Ankira dealt.” She stood and extended a hand. “Now, ready to rejoin the world?”

Roueneil pushed back the blankets, took her hand, and stood. “I am.”


End file.
